


From The Darkness Comes A Spark

by ash_mcj



Series: Derek’s Person [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Affectionate Derek Hale, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Allison Argent & Derek Hale are Related, Allison Argent & Malia Tate & Jackson Whittemore are Siblings, Allison Argent and Malia Tate are Siblings, Angst, Chris Argent & Peter Hale & Sheriff Stilinski Friendship, Chris Argent is Derek Hale's Parental Figure, Depression, Derek Hale Makes Bad Life Choices, Derek Hale's Past Consent Issues with Kate Argent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kid Derek Hale, Kid Stiles Stilinski, Malia Tate & Jackson Whittemore are Siblings, Mates Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Minor Character Death, Multi, POV Derek Hale, POV Peter Hale, POV Sheriff Stilinski, POV Stiles Stilinski, Past Derek Hale/Paige, Peter Hale is Derek Hale's Parental Figure, Sheriff Stilinski Feels, Sick Claudia Stilinski, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski Has ADHD, Stiles Stilinski is Derek Hale's Anchor, Stiles Stilinski is Derek Hale's Favorite, Teenager Derek Hale, Underage Kate Argent/Derek Hale, because derek is too young to actually consent, petopher, sterek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27886690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ash_mcj/pseuds/ash_mcj
Summary: It’s extraordinary how much can happen in a single year. How relationships can fall apart, along with the people in them. How a friend can become a lifeline, holding you up in the sea of emotions you find yourself drowning in. How you can lose everything you care about.In one year, the death of Stiles’ mother sent his father into alcoholism, as he tried to battle the inner darkness with a bottle in each hand. Stiles’ godfathers, Peter and Chris, spent most of their time trying to pull the whiskey from his fingers, but it didn’t change the fact that Stiles was essentially losing both of his parents.In one year, Derek found company in two girls who irrevocably changed his life. One gave him distressing clarity that caused him to pull away from his anchor, and the other lit his world on fire until there was nothing but ash on his hands.[Fluff, Hale Family Feels, Angst...basically all the awful things that happened before Season 1, plus kid!Sterek and Spark!Stiles]
Relationships: Chris Argent/Peter Hale, Claudia Stilinski/Sheriff Stilinski, Derek Hale/Paige, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Kate Argent/Derek Hale
Series: Derek’s Person [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008861
Comments: 821
Kudos: 1107
Collections: Sterek Goodness, sterek





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! If you are new to this series, all you have to know is that Peter Hale and Chris Argent (Hale) are married and live at the Hale House with their three children: Allison, Jackson, and Malia. Their best friend is Noah Stilinski, so Stiles comes to the Hale house very frequently and is basically part of the pack.
> 
> AGES ARE ROUGHLY: Laura (18), Derek (14), Cora and Allison (9), Jackson, Malia, and Stiles (8)
> 
> (also...I did not rate the story with underage or rape/non con, because I never actually show it. It will show Derek and Kate kiss, but I will definitely not be writing any further explicit scenes between the two of them. I will put a warning on the kissing part, though, when I eventually get to it)

Peter Hale was stirred awake by the sound of his cell phone buzzing softly on his nightstand. He blindly reached out, fumbling to find the device, before grabbing it and squinting at the painfully-bright screen.

_Noah_

Peter hit 'answer' and said, “You know I love our late night calls, Darling, but Christopher really needs his beauty sleep and if I wake him, I’ll be the one having to suffer through looking at those bags under his eyes.”

 _“Peter, I-"_ Noah said, before a panicked, choked-off sob ripped through him and caused Peter to bolt upright into a sitting position. The sudden motion startled Christopher awake, as well.

“Noah, are you alright?” Peter asked. He had seen Noah cry a few tears before, but _nothing_ like the heart-wrenching sound he had just heard. “Are you hurt?”

 _“No, I...I can’t. I can’t_ breathe _, Peter. I can’t do this; I’m not-”_

“Where are you?” Peter quickly got out of bed and rushed over to the closet to grab a sweater, a pair of jeans, and his boots.

_“The preserve. At the old spot - you remember?”_

“Of course. Should I bring Christopher?”

_“Yeah...please.”_

Peter snapped his fingers urgently in his husband’s direction and motioned for him to get up. Christopher scrambled out of the bed and raced to throw clothes on.

“We’re coming,” Peter assured him. “Should we bring anything?”

_“No, I’m fine. I mean, I’m not, but...it’s Claudia. I just...please come.”_

* * *

When Peter and Christopher got to the familiar clearing in the Preserve, they found Noah sitting on the ground, leaning against the fallen tree trunk they used to sit on so often as teenagers. His hands scrubbed anxiously over his face and his short hair was sticking up in odd directions, as if he had been pulling on it.

“Noah,” Christopher said gently as he sat down beside him and wrapped his arm around him. Noah immediately turned into the embrace and buried his face against Christopher’s shoulder, letting out another sob into the soft material of his sweater. Peter took Noah’s other side, rubbing his upper back consolingly. 

Peter’s chest ached as he felt the hints of raw angst that trickled through their pack bond. “You’re okay - just breathe.”

Noah shook his head, but did shift to straighten up a bit and take a deep, shaky breath that didn’t really seem to help him all that much. “Claudia-”

“Breathe for a second, Noah. We’ve got all night,” Christopher stopped him.

Noah closed his eyes and took a few more steadying breaths until he had calmed down a bit, before opening them again and looking out at the trees, unfocused. 

“You guys know she’s been...acting weird. For the past year or so. I finally got her to go to the doctor,” Noah explained, sounding monotonous and detached. “Frontotemporal dementia...her brain is shrinking... _dying_. _She’s_ dying. Gods, she’s _dying._ ”

Peter and Christopher shared a pained look and shifted in closer to Noah, who seemed like he couldn't believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. This was going to destroy him. This was going to destroy _Stiles_.

“I’m so sorry,” Peter whispered. “Your family doesn’t deserve this.”

“They said it’s progressing quickly. One to three years,” Noah said, fresh tears pooling in his eyes again. Christopher tightened his hold around Noah and rested his forehead against his shoulder while he continued to stare off at the woods. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. How am I...How am I gonna do this alone? I mean, Stiles…”

“Noah, listen to me,” Peter told him. When Noah made no move to look, he reached out and coaxed his head towards him by a soft grip on his jaw. When Noah finally trained his bloodshot eyes on his, Peter continued, “You are _not_ alone...you will _never_ be alone, because you’re _pack_. You have Christopher and I through thick and thin, okay? And Stiles has been raised alongside our pups - he’s been pack since the day he was born. That child will never even have a chance to feel alone in his life, with how many pack bonds he’s accumulated.”

“If you need _anything_ from us, you know we’re here,” Christopher added. “You can keep dropping Stiles off at our house while you’re at work. He’s always welcome with us, if you need to spend more time with Claudia.”

“It shouldn’t be your responsibility to basically raise my son by watching him all the time - you do it too often, already,” Noah sighed weakly, his breathing still hitching here and there. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “I can’t just pass my kid off because I’m overwhelmed - you’ve already gotten two that way. I can’t be a shitty parent like that.”

“You wouldn’t be passing Stiles off, and you shouldn’t look at it that way. This isn’t a matter of you just being overwhelmed - you know you can’t leave him unattended while you're at work, and you now have a wife that really needs your attention,” Christopher reasoned. “I'm just saying feel free to drop him off, if you need to.”

“Besides, we’re his godfathers,” Peter said, smiling encouragingly. “It’s literally in our job description to step in when you could use some extra hands.”

“Thank you.” Noah nodded. “Gods, I’m...I’m not cut out to be a single parent, you guys. Stiles doesn’t deserve that.”

“He’ll be okay,” Christopher assured him. “You both will.”

* * *

Derek was lying in bed, reading under the orange glow of his lamp on his nightstand, when he heard his uncles rush down the hall. Derek’s head shot up as Noah’s name was said in urgency.

Was something wrong with Mr. Noah? Why else would they have hurried out like that in the middle of the night? He felt his stomach pinch at the thought that something could be wrong with Stiles, but he could feel in his chest that there wasn’t. He wasn’t sure how exactly —maybe it was an anchor thing— but he could always tell when there was something wrong with the younger boy. So, he was confident that Stiles was safe.

He looked over at his digital alarm clock that read _2:10AM_ and winced. He had to leave for school in five hours - why did he always stay up so late? He knew why, of course, but it wouldn’t make him any less angry with himself when he would be trudging through the Preserve in the morning on his way to _Beacon Hills Middle School_ like a zombie. Something about the night - specifically the dark, calm silence within it - was relaxing to him in a way that he could never quite explain. To sleep through it felt wasteful.

Despite making the conscious decision to attempt sleep, Derek found himself rolling out of bed and grabbing a pair of sneakers out of his closet. Sleep was overrated, anyway. And deep down, he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to sleep very soundly unless he double-checked that Stiles was fine. Whatever was wrong with Mr. Noah sounded urgent, and it set his wolf on-edge a bit. After pulling on his red jacket with the white strings, he sneaked out of his room and hurried quietly towards the stairs. He could hear everybody’s calm heartbeats and steady breathing from the rooms around him, so he knew they were asleep. He was in the clear.

As soon as he stepped out onto the porch, the cool breeze blew against his cheeks, filling his senses with the familiar scents of the woods. Dirt, tree bark, animals. He grinned softly to himself and glanced up at the bright moon above. He loved being outdoors - especially at night. There was nothing else like it. He shut the front door behind him, then started off in the direction of the Stilinskis’ house. They lived near the Preserve, but it would still be about a thirty minute walk. Six minute run, though. 

Derek knelt on the ground and pushed his hands into the cold dirt, enjoying the way it felt under his palms and between his fingers. He allowed himself to relax enough for his his claws to lengthen and dig into the earth, then looked up with glowing eyes and leaped into a run on all fours. He smiled through his fangs at the way his senses were dialed up. He could hear the few birds who hadn’t yet gone to sleep in the trees, and the deer eating close by. He could smell the plants and the traces of a rabbit that passed through the area recently. He loved getting temporarily lost in his wolf. 

He got to the edge of the preserve faster than he would have liked and had to pause. Why was he out here? He thought for a second as he caught his breath, then felt a light tug in his chest and remembered that he was checking on Stiles. He waited for a few moments until he was able to urge his shift away, then took off at a jog through the streets.

When he got to the familiar Stilinski residence, he looked around for a moment to make sure no one was looking, then leaped up and grabbed onto the edge of the roof. He pulled himself up and crawled over to Stiles’ window, which was left open a bit. Why did he just leave his window open all the time? Anyone could come in through here!

Derek slid it wider open as quietly as he could, but Stiles immediately sprang up in surprise, which startled Derek and caused him to fall backwards onto the roof tiles. His claws popped out and dug into the roofing, trying to find something to hold onto to prevent himself from slipping off entirely.

“Der!” Stiles hissed, appearing in the window with a worried expression. “Are you okay?”

“Sorry,” Derek mumbled, carefully getting to his feet again.

“Don’t just stand out there like a creeper - get in here!” Stiles motioned dramatically for Derek to climb in, so he did. “Are you _crazy_? You can’t just sneak up on me like that! You scared the heck outta me!”

“Sorry.”

“You already said that.” Stiles rolled his eyes. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

Derek wasn’t sure what exactly was going on with Mr. Noah, so he figured it would be best to not say anything about it. “Your window was open.”

“So?”

“It shouldn’t be,” Derek told him. It wasn’t really an answer to his question, but it was true.

“Are you excited for Easter?” Stiles changed the topic, heading over to his bed again with Derek following close behind. “It’s only two weeks away.” 

Derek shrugged. He liked hard boiled eggs and candy was cool, but Easter wasn’t exactly the biggest deal to him.

“Well, _I'm_ excited. It’s a whole day full of _candy_.”

“Yikes,” Derek said, a teasing smile at his lips. “You, plus candy?”

“A match made in Heaven,” Stiles sighed dreamily. After a few seconds, he said, “We should probably sleep.”

Derek nodded.

“Okay, don’t steal the blankets or you’ll have to sleep on the floor like a bad dog.”

“You’re not funny, Stiles.” Derek rolled his eyes as he kicked his shoes off onto the floor and crawled under the blanket.

“I’m _super_ funny.”

“Not really.”

Stiles stuck his tongue out, then pulled Derek to lay down with him. Derek had taken the pillow, so he curled into his side and set his head on the werewolf's chest instead.

“Goodnight, Der,”

Derek closed his eyes and shushed him.

“Okay, rude.”

“Sleep, Mischief.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m _sleeping_.”

Stiles definitely wasn't sleeping. Derek knew, because he was trying to use his breathing and heartbeat to relax himself enough to (hopefully) be able to sleep after he had (stupidly) let his wolf out, but it kept speeding up and slowing down as the boy was doubtlessly thinking about anything and everything. At one point, he even let out a soft giggle and Derek used the arm that was pinned underneath Stiles to flick the center of his back. A small yelp, followed by a “Sorry; I’m sleeping,” was mumbled, and this time, he really did seem to quiet his mind. No more moving or giggling. Steady breathing. Calm, rhythmic heartbeat. The scent of warm sugar and cinnamon in such close proximity to Derek that he could practically _taste_ it.

Derek’s wolf lasted less than a minute after Stiles had fallen asleep, to quiet down and relax enough for him to drift off.


	2. Chapter 2

Derek and Stiles were seated on the living room couch, watching _The Sandlot_ , when Cora ran in from the kitchen and pounced onto the couch, nearly crashing into Derek’s side. He tensed up in alarm at the sudden wolf in his personal space and Cora immediately scooted back a little to give him some room. 

“Whoops, my bad! Anyway, hey, big bro.”

Derek nodded his head upwards once in acknowledgement, then raised an eyebrow for her to continue.

“You’re going to _high school_ soon,” She started. “So...does that mean you’re gonna play a sport? Y’know, since Laura is in volleyball and I will _definitely_ be playing some sort of sport when _I_ go to high school. Maybe basketball or soccer - I don’t know yet.”

Laura had been in volleyball all four years of high school and recently found out that she had been offered a sports scholarship to Cal State Beacon Hills, which she would be going to in the Fall. Derek thought it would probably be fun to play a sport, but he wasn’t entirely sure that he would be able to keep control in one with a lot of contact. He probably wouldn’t trust himself in lacrosse or basketball. Definitely not wrestling - apart from control, he definitely would not want to be in that much contact with random sweaty teenage boys. 

Stiles nudged his side with his elbow and said, “You like baseball! My dad played baseball when he was in high school.”

Derek did like baseball. And it was fairly minimal contact, which would be good.

“You should totally play!” Cora exclaimed. “Stiles and I would come watch your games. Allie and Malia, too. Maybe even Jackson. That would be _way_ cooler than watching those stupid volleyball matches.”

“You only think they’re stupid because you don’t understand the game,” Laura accused, appearing in the entryway with her arms crossed over her chest. “Not the game’s fault you couldn’t pick up the rules in four years.”

“I _know_ the rules...it’s just _boring_.”

“Whatever.” Laura rolled her eyes. “So, Derek...sports, huh? What were you thinking? There’s soccer, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, swim team, track - but I think you would look great in the cheerleader uniform, if you wanted my opinion.”

Derek flipped her off with both hands, earning giggles from Stiles and Cora, then Laura left back up the stairs without another word.

“Maybe baseball,” Derek said.

“Yes! That will make you so much cooler of an older brother.”

“It _will_ make you cooler,” Stiles agreed.

“Now that that’s all figured out,” Cora said. “I’m stealing Stiles. So...go away.”

“Get lost, Mr. Almost-High-Schooler.” Stiles pushed Derek off the couch and slid over to take his spot beside Cora.

Derek shook his head and reached down to briefly ruffle both of their hair, before gently pushing their heads backwards against the couch cushions and making his way up the stairs to his bedroom. He made sure to shut it behind himself, before going over to stand in front of the mirror above his dresser.

Baseball, huh? Would that mean he would need to start working out like Laura did? Probably. He couldn’t just try out for a sports team looking like he lived his entire life in his bed. He needed muscle definition or something to show that he was capable of being athletic.

He reached down to grab the hem of his shirt, then pulled it off over his head and looked in the mirror at his torso. He definitely wasn’t chubby, but he was... _soft_ . Which was just not the high school look he really wanted to go for - especially since Laura always looked fit and athletic. He felt like she had set the precedent for what to expect from the Hales and now it was his job to carry it on. Plus, Uncle Peter was captain of the basketball team when _he_ went to Beacon Hills High School. Soft was just...not the look.

What did Laura do to work out? Push ups...pull ups...sit ups...running, right? He loved running - so that would be an easy habit to get into. He could start going on daily runs. He figured he could start with sit ups, so he laid down on the carpet and crossed his arms into an ‘x’ over his upper chest, with each of his hands holding onto his shoulders.

He managed to get through fifty sit ups, before he thought he was definitely about to die or something. His abdomen was _burning_ , he was getting a slight tremble throughout his entire body, and he realized suddenly that he had forgotten to keep breathing during his efforts. He collapsed onto the ground for a moment to relax and breathe, before attempting to keep going. He made it to seventy-five, then called it quits. His werewolf strength and endurance was not as impressive as he thought it would be while working out and he had a newfound sense of admiration for Laura’s ability to do three hundred of these per day.

He shakily pushed himself up onto his feet and flexed his arms. They weren't sore, so he figured he could do some arm workouts next. He looked at the ledge of the door frame that lead to his walk-in closet and jumped up to grab hold of it. It wasn’t particularly comfortable on his fingers, but it would work.

He was so focused on pushing through the exhausting burn in his chest, arms, and abdomen, that he didn’t hear anyone in the hallway until his door was thrown open and Stiles was standing there, a curious look on his face.

“Jesus!” Derek hissed, startled at the sudden presence. His hands slipped off the frame and then he was on his back, the breath knocked out of him and the back of his head throbbing slightly. Once he had gasped some air back into his lungs, he glared at the boy and said, “Knock?”

Stiles scoffed, entering the room further and sitting on his bed. “I don’t remember _you_ knocking _any_ of the times you’ve crawled through my window, dude.”

“Close your window then.” Derek sat up with a slightly-pained groan. 

“Nah, I like the way it brings in the wolves.” Stiles shrugged. “So...you’re trying to be a muscle wolf now?”

Derek growled and turned away from him to grab a shirt from the closet. 

“Aw, are you embarrassed?”

“Shut up.”

“It’s cool to work out! Super cool. My dad even does it.”

Derek, shielded away from Stiles’ view from within his walk-in closet, put his forehead against the wall and shook his head. He definitely did not want Stiles to know he was trying to work out - and really, this was the first day...who even knew if he’d actually make it a habit? - for a lot of reasons. The main one, which was at the forefront of Derek’s thoughts at the moment, was that Stiles _talked_ . The last thing he needed was for the pack to find out and want to do something completely weird and mortifying like _work out with him_ . Laura sometimes did with their uncles and Derek really _didn’t_ want to join that. There were a limited number of activities he could feel comfortable doing with his pack and that would never be one of them.

* * *

At the small table situated on the front porch of the Hale house, Peter and Christopher were working through two bottles of wine - one marked with a white sticker to indicate it's aconite lace and the other regular. Peter was gazing out at the treeline, while his husband was in the middle of a crossword puzzle, the only point of interaction with each other being the way Christopher had hooked his ankle with Peter's under the table.

"I'm completely ravenous," Peter sighed. "If we don't start dinner soon, I'm going hunting."

"What do you want to eat?" 

"You, always," Peter purred, reaching across the table to run his hand lightly up the other man's arm. "You run and I'll catch you."

“For _dinner_ ," Christopher specified, his face tight as he attempted to appear exasperated, but he couldn't lie to Peter. The beauty of being mated meant that he could feel the other man's emotions through their bond, and he was not only amused, but also a bit interested in Peter's proposition.

“My statement stands.”

“What about barbecue?”

“Hm...that could be good. Do we have burger patties?”

“No, but Noah can get them on his way over," Christopher said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He set it on the table and clicked on his _Favorites_ tab, which included Peter, Noah, and Derek.

The line rang a few times on speaker, before Noah answered. _"My child bothering you or do you miss me?"_

"I always miss you," Christopher told him.

 _"It's mutual,"_ Noah chuckled. _"_ _What's_ _up?"_

"Peter wants to barbecue for us tonight, but we need you to bring burger patties on the way over."

_"Thank the Gods - I've really been needing some of Peter's burgers."_

"I won't disappoint, then," Peter promised. 

* * *

About an hour later the three men were standing around the barbecue, whiskeys in hand. Peter and Christopher had finished their wine by the time Noah had arrived and it was reasoned that he deserved a drink after being at work all day. So, a couple bottles of whiskey were brought out front. 

"How was Stiles today?" Noah asked, pouring a generous amount of the amber liquid over the ice in his glass for the second time that evening.

"Good, as always. He distracted Cora long enough for me to make a work call, and then disappeared upstairs with Derek to play some sort of racing video game, I believe," Peter answered.

“Sounds about right.” Noah nodded. He swirled the whiskey a few times, the ice clinking against the sides of the glass, before taking a large sip. “Who do you think is gonna be the one to walk down the aisle? I feel like it's gonna be Stiles.”

Peter looked at him curiously. He and Christopher had never really acknowledged the kids' mate bond with Noah, since it still wasn't completely definite. Only Derek would really be able to give an explicit answer to the suspicion - though Peter was _pretty_ damn sure they were right. “What do you mean?”

“Derek and Stiles...I mean, the kid’s got Derek around his finger, but I can’t imagine him getting him to walk. Then again, I don’t know if Stiles will manage to get all the way to the altar without tripping. Maybe they should both just start up there.”

“Wait, so you _do_ know?” Christopher asked, grinning.

“That they’re mates?” Noah asked, his eyebrows pinching together in confusion. “They understand each other without words, they anchor each other, they take care of each other - Hell, they stood up to _Talia_ together. I thought it was just something that everyone knew, but we weren’t talking about it because it would freak them out or something? But I was thinking about it at work and wanted to know what you guys thought.”

"Oh, Noah," Peter burst into laughter. "It brings me a very special kind of amusement and joy that you were able to get to that conclusion on your own - when you don’t even live here and you’re human, so you weren't tipped off by chemosignals around the boys - yet our mighty Alpha had to be _informed_. _By_ a human.”

“Wait, she didn’t know?”

“Christopher had to tell her.”

“How’d that go?”

Peter's jaw set tightly and he shook his head in annoyance. “She tried to insinuate that Derek had... _vile_ intentions towards Stiles, because she obviously wouldn’t know her own son from a random stranger off the street.”

“That’s ridiculous - that’s not how mate bonds work," Noah said. "What gave her the impression that Derek would _ever_ hurt Stiles? He totally adores him."

“Exactly, but she has never cared enough to do any research on the mate front, since it doesn’t directly affect her.”

“So what did you say, Chris?”

"I seriously considered taking up hunting again," He replied, his voice hard and menacing. "Then I made it clear that if she made any groundless, horrific accusations like that again, she would regret it. She hasn't brought it up since."

“I’ll second it - I’ve got a gun and a supply of wolfsbane bullets, if she goes after my son’s mate.”

“Noah, _please_ tell my stupid husband that I’m right in my belief that we should just take her out of the picture for the best of the pack," Peter said, looking pointedly at Christopher.

"We are not killing our Alpha." 


	3. Chapter 3

Noah was woken up when Stiles jolted his bed by jumping onto the foot of it, fully dressed in a pair of jeans and a green flannel with a pale yellow shirt underneath it. His hair fell in a calm shag, instead of the sleep-mussed disaster it usually was in the morning, so he must have brushed it already.

“Happy Easter!” Stiles grinned brightly. “C’mon, guys, we’ve gotta _go_.”

“Is it really seven already?” Noah groaned, rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes.

“Yes! I’ve been waiting to wake you up for a whole entire _hour_.”

When Stiles was younger, he would try to wake his parents up on holidays before the sun had even risen - so, the seven o’clock rule was made to allow Noah and Claudia enough sleep to deal with the day. He wasn’t allowed to wake anyone up before seven unless it was due to a nightmare or an emergency.

“Okay, Son. Go do...something,” Noah told him as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. “We need a second to wake up.”

“How _many_ seconds, Dad? We need to get to the pack house right _now_!”

The boy had decided at four years old that he wanted to start putting notes on the front door for the Easter bunny every year, redirecting him to leave his eggs and Easter baskets at the Hale residence, since he didn’t want to celebrate the morning without them. Noah couldn’t have agreed more, since it meant Peter could deal with hiding everything and Chris would make an amazing breakfast. Plus, he got to spend more time with the pack, which he loved. 

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were the one driving us there,” Noah said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I’m not.”

“Then, I don’t know why you’re rushing me.”

Stiles rolled his eyes so hard that his head made the motion with them and Noah couldn’t help but chuckle at his antics. The kid spent too much time with Peter. Noah used his foot to gently push Stiles towards the edge of the bed until he tipped off with a yelp and fell onto the ground. 

“Rude,” Stiles grumbled as he stood up. “Five minutes and then you _have_ to be ready, okay?”

“Ten,” Noah countered.

“Three.”

“Well hold on there, Son, that’s not how that works,” Noah said, shaking his head. “You’re supposed to meet me in the middle, not go even lower.”

“Fine,” Stiles sighed, before smirking. “The middle of ten is five.”

His son may have been born a Stilinski, but he was a smartass Hale at heart, and Noah secretly loved it. Even if it did drive him up the wall sometimes.

“Go.”

Stiles held up five fingers and fixed the man with a pointed look as he left the room.

Noah turned to Claudia, who hadn’t even bothered to open her eyes yet that morning. He reached down and brushed her brown hair out of her face and said, “Good morning.”

“It doesn’t feel like morning,” Claudia said. “I feel like I hardly slept a wink.”

“If I know Chris - which I do - he’ll have enough coffee going to caffeinate half of Beacon Hills.”

“I don’t think I’m going to go.”

Noah looked at his wife with raised eyebrows, trying to judge if she was serious. “It’s Easter...You have to come.”

“I just...I don’t think I can deal with it this morning. I’m too tired.”

“Honey, Stiles would hate for you to miss it.”

“Really, Noah?” She turned onto her side, facing away from him. “Guilt tripping me, huh? How wonderful of you.”

“Guilt tripping?” Noah asked confusedly. “I’m not guilt tripping you - I’m letting you know that you would be missed, if you stayed home.”

“Gods, is it a crime to want a _few_ more hours of sleep?”

“You really don’t want to come? You know it’s just...it’s the sickness that’s making you so tired - you know that. I’m sure if you just get up and get some coffee in you, you-”

“No, Noah!” She hissed, sitting up and glaring at him. “I _don’t_ want to go deal with the Hales. I _don’t_ want to listen to their whole house of kids screaming. I _don’t_ want to pretend that some magical bunny left hard boiled eggs around the freezing woods this early in the morning. I _don’t_ want to deal with all the...the _energy_ and _loud_ and _ADHD_ Mieczyław will be spewing everywhere all day - I, I can’t _handle_ that today, Noah. I’m too _tired_ to deal with it.”

Noah looked away and nodded as she laid back down. He got out of bed and threw on the first clothes he could find, trying his hardest not to say anything else. He knew it wasn’t her - he really did - but it infuriated him. She was really just going to lay in bed all day today? When Stiles wanted her there? When they didn't even know how many more Easters she’d have with him? With Noah? And he shouldn’t have been mad. He shouldn’t have had the right to be mad, because this wasn’t his wife. This was just a bad day. This was just the sickness that was taking the form of her face and her voice - and Noah was struggling with making his emotions recognize the difference.

* * *

When Noah and Stiles reached the Hale house, Peter was already waiting for them on the porch. Stiles leapt out of the car before it had even come to a stop and sprinted for Peter, who held his arms out to catch the child barreling towards him. As soon as Peter embraced him, Stiles threw his arms around him and buried his face in his neck to breathe in his familiar scent. It was earthy, but not like the woods...more like a creek. The way the rocks would smell after being pulled out of the water. Stiles had asked his teacher what that was called and she said petrichor. 

Growing up alongside werewolves, Stiles had adopted several of their mannerisms. One was smelling people. Since he had to press his nose into their skin to be able to pick up their natural scent, it usually occurred during hugs. He'd learned to find comfort in all of the Hales' smells.

“Happy Easter!” Stiles said.

“Happy Easter, Miecz.” 

They broke apart after a few seconds and Stiles asked, “Derek’s still sleeping, huh?”

“Yes - he’s not a morning person, as you know. You should probably go wake him up, because I’m not doing it.”

Stiles shook his head in amusement, before entering the house and creeping up the stairs as quietly as he could. Judging by the lack of...well, everyone...the majority of the family was still asleep, which wasn’t too abnormal for the Hales. The only ones who were usually up with the sun were Chris and Allison - Jackson and the wolves were (rather stereotypically) creatures of the night. Mornings were not the friendliest time there - especially as everyone was getting older and preferred to sleep in later. 

Stiles opened the door to Derek’s room and silently slipped in. The older boy was fast asleep, buried under all of his pillows and blankets as if hiding from the world. Stiles sat on his bed and slowly pulled the bedding away from his face. His eyebrows subtly twitched towards each other at the exposure, but his face relaxed again as Stiles brushed two fingers gently down his forehead and between his eyes, tracing the sturdy cartilage of his nose.

He knew from experience that it was best to wake Derek up calmly in the morning. Ripping the blankets off and/or hitting him with pillows resulted in a very grumpy wolf all day.

“Happy Easter,” Stiles said softly, recognizing that he was awake by the way his nose flared.

Derek grunted, before squinting one eye open and looking up at him. Derek definitely didn’t look as happy about being awake as Stiles did, but the soft green of his eyes gave away that he wasn’t nearly as upset as he was trying to pretend he was with the slight scowl he wore.

Typical Derek.

“So...are you ready for the egg hunt?”

“No,” Derek said, his voice hoarse from sleep.

“You mean _yes_?”

“Five minutes.”

“No minutes,” Stiles argued, his fingers playing with the sleeve of Derek’s shirt.

“Mischief,” Derek groaned.

“Yes, my sleepy wolf?”

The teenager tried to roll away from him, but Stiles pulled him back and coaxed him up into a sitting position, which earned him a heatless glare and a quiet growl. Derek's hair stuck up in all directions, like those cartoon people who got electrocuted. Or maybe like someone rubbed a balloon on his head.

“Nice hair.”

Derek reached up and attempted to flatten it down, but it simply sprang back up.

“Yep, you fixed it. Good job.”

Derek rolled his eyes and pushed Stiles off his bed as he stood up and stumbled over to his dresser, his feet dragging lazily on the carpet.

* * *

Within ten minutes, everyone was out in front of the Hale house.

The rules of the annual egg hunt were simple.

They split into teams, each with one human and one blindfolded wolf, so it was fair. They had to work together - the human as the eyes and the wolf as the nose. Whichever team found the most eggs would get to choose what was made for breakfast.

Derek was pretty sure the egg hunt was his uncles' subtle way of incorporating the pups’ wolf training into the holiday celebration, but whatever.

Like every year, Malia and Jackson immediately linked arms and shared a slightly sinister grin. They were ridiculously competitive. Allison and Cora used to try to partner with Stiles, but Derek refused to be blindfolded with anyone else, so...they always ended up together. Without Derek, there would be an odd number of people for the teams - he was essential.

Derek didn’t _try_ to be difficult - despite what he was pretty sure some of his family thought. He just... _couldn’t_. The blindfold made him anxious, since his wolf hated the vulnerability that came with removing his eyesight. They only way he would be able to remain calm enough to do the stupid egg hunt - which, really, he was getting kind of old for anyway - was if he had his anchor with him the whole time.

Derek knew that Stiles noticed _everything_ in a five mile radius of himself, so he would be able to alert him of any kind of danger. Probably by running towards it extremely loudly and trying to get himself killed, because Stiles lived to stress Derek out. It really was just Derek's luck that his wolf chose _him_ as his anchor. 

“Alright, masks on,” Chris said, sitting down at the porch table and angling his chair to face the woods. 

Derek took a deep breath and tied the black blindfold around his eyes, completely stripping him of the sense. He felt his heart rate quicken a little at the sound of his family moving and shifting around him, because despite logically knowing and smelling that it was just them, his wolf couldn’t be _positive_ that there were no potentially-dangerous outsiders amongst them.

As soon as his anxiety started to rise, he felt a cold hand grasp his and his body relaxed as he let out a breath.

_Cinnamon. Stiles. Safe._

“Alright, go!” Peter instructed.

Stiles pulled Derek off the porch and towards the trees. They were moving a bit faster than he liked, but he knew Stiles wouldn’t let him run into anything. Stiles would never prank him with something like that, which the teenager was extremely grateful about. Somehow the human always knew exactly when and when _not_ to play around - something Derek's little sister and cousins were not well-versed in, which was a major reason why he refused to partner with them. They would most definitely run him into trees or make him trip over rocks or something.

They walked for about two minutes, Stiles’ hand still firmly clasped in his as he pulled him away from obstacles every few seconds, before Derek caught the scent of an egg.

“It’s over there.” He pointed in the direction the smell was coming from.

“I don’t see it.”

“Go look.”

“ _Alone?_ I think you just want me to have to crawl into that bush and get spiders on me.”

Derek sighed, knowing full well that Stiles was going to make him crawl into the stupid bush with him.

Stiles pulled him onto the ground and the two of them crawled across the dirt ground on their hands and knees for about thirty seconds, before Derek stopped. They shouldn't have been crawling for this long, if they were just trying to go under a bush or whatever Stiles was claiming.

“If there isn’t a bush, I will rip your head off.”

“There’s totally a bush!”

And, because this was Stiles Stilinski and _of course_ he would find a nonthreatening way to make Derek’s life difficult - his heart sped up. _Lying._

Derek ripped his blindfold off and looked in the direction of the egg, which was sitting on the ground - _not in a bush_ \- beside the trunk of a nearby tree, still about three yards away.

They had been crawling on the ground for absolutely no reason. 

“Stiles.” He growled, turning towards the younger boy. “You’re dead.”

Stiles scrambled to his feet before taking off, and Derek chased close behind with golden eyes. If Derek still had full control of his wolf and the glowing was solely to make Stiles scream excitedly and run faster the way he always did when he would partially shift while chasing him, then that was nobody else’s business. 

They didn’t win the egg hunt, but Malia and Jackson picked bacon, sausage, and cheesy eggs, so…it was a good Easter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! My resolution is to get my update schedule back under control, since I've been so unreliable this month. I looked at my calendar and I think I'm going to aim to update on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It is Saturday (for me) today, so this is the first day of my new update schedule!

The sun was setting over the roof of the Stilinski house and Derek was beginning to wonder when Stiles would give up his stupid notion to become a skater. Apparently, the kids at school were saying that all cool kids could skateboard and Stiles --clumsy, breakable, completely uncoordinated Stiles-- decided he was going to learn. 

From his spot sitting on the front lawn, Derek watched as Stiles managed to stay on the board for a full three seconds, before it slipped out from under him and he fell backwards onto his tailbone for the seventh time that afternoon. Derek winced at the sharp pang of pain that shot through their pack bond. Stiles groaned and rolled onto his stomach, his forehead resting against the faded asphalt.

Of course Stiles would just lay in the _street_.

Derek quickly got up and went over to the boy, wanting to get him up before a car decided to come through. He grabbed him under the arms and pulled him up onto his feet, then let go. Stiles immediately sagged and stumbled a bit, his back obviously complaining at the weight of holding himself up. Derek instantly took hold of his arm again to lift slightly and alleviate some of the weight.

Derek’s wolf suddenly alerted at the scent of the blood coming from the multiple scrapes Stiles had acquired on his elbows, knees, and palms and he let out an involuntary growl as he looked him over.

“I’m fine, Der,” Stiles assured him, shaking his hold off lightly and reaching up slowly to stretch out his back. “You’re just...you just gotta...ugh, _ow_.”

Derek quirked an eyebrow at the boy, unsure how the hell Stiles failing at skating was _his_ fault. This whole thing was stupid. Stiles was just getting hurt--what even was the point of this? 

“Just...you gotta quit _looking_ at me. You’re making me nervous,” Stiles explained. Derek rolled his eyes and Stiles continued, “Seriously! If you just don’t look at me, I know I’ll get it soon.”

_Bleeding. Injured. Skating is dangerous._

“Ten minutes,” Derek grunted, mentally pushing his wolf back before it could decide to drag Stiles into the house. He had the irrational urge to break the skateboard, but he knew Stiles would be mad if he did, so he refrained.

“You’re not the boss of me.”

Derek growled again and his upper lip curled slightly to bare a hint of his blunt front teeth.

“You already know I'm not scared of you, so what is this? You want me to show my teeth, too? We can just stand here in the street and show our teeth at each other like a couple weirdos until you give up and let me do this...but I’m _gonna_ do this. You _know_ I'm gonna do this. So, go sit your little wolf butt down in the grass and don’t watch me anymore.”

Derek seriously began to consider the idea of dragging him inside --since he obviously wouldn’t be able to overpower a werewolf and he was being a pain in the ass (as usual)-- but he decided to just return to the lawn and sit down. He kept his eyes down, watching the way the grass threaded through his fingers as he ran his hand over it.

‘Soon’ turned out to be fifteen minutes.

Derek listened to the rough sound of the wheels rolling across the pavement for three seconds, then five, then...Derek looked up in surprise to see that Stiles was _doing it_. He was _skating_.

The kid stayed on the board for a full nine seconds, before it slowed down and Stiles stepped off, looking down at the board and then over at Derek with a mixture of shock and pride. Stiles picked the skateboard up and ran towards Derek, then tossed it onto the grass right before barreling into the teenager and sending them both rolling from the impact. Once Derek got his bearings, he sat them both up and Stiles hugged him tighter than any kid as scrawny as he was should have been able to. 

“Der, I’m a _skater_! Did you see that? I did it! You saw, right? I really did it! I didn’t fall or anything!”

“Good job, Mischief.” Derek chuckled lightly.

“Thanks,” Stiles mumbled against Derek’s shoulder. A few calming moments passed while Stiles' heart rate and breathing slowed back to its normal pace, before he pulled away and gave him a stern, but affectionate look. “Hey, you _shouldn’t_ have seen! You weren’t supposed to be looking.”

Derek gently pushed Stiles off, sending him falling backwards into the grass, and shook his head at his mood swings.

* * *

Noah came home from work to a house that smelled amazing. Someone was obviously cooking, but he knew it wasn't likely that it was Claudia, since she rarely attempted making meals anymore. He entered the kitchen and smiled warmly upon seeing Stiles seated on the counter, watching Derek toss a salad for dinner.

He loved coming home to them. It had become more of a common occurrence as they got older, for Derek to accompany Stiles home after school instead of Stiles always going to the Hale house --though he still often did that, as well. Sometimes Derek would even bring the girls and Noah would find all five of them in Stiles’ room. Noah always loved seeing the Hales in his house, since it brought the feeling of pack to his own place, rather than just the Hale house.

“Salad, huh?” Noah acknowledged, walking up behind Derek to look at the concoction of vegetables in the large bowl.

Derek tensed slightly at the presence of Noah at his back and turned around to face him, leaning against the counter. He nodded his head in Stiles’ direction and the kid gave Noah a smirk. 

Of course salad was his idea to make. He’d been learning about the importance of healthy foods from school and had made the executive decision that the Stilinski family was going to start living a healthier lifestyle. Noah hated it.

“Staying for dinner, Son?” Noah asked Derek as he moved over to the fridge and grabbed a beer from the bottom shelf.

“Of course he is!” Stiles answered for him. “We’re starting a new book tonight.”

“Sounds good. I’m gonna get showered and then I’ll...well, _maybe_ I’ll come back. Not sure if I’m hungry, if we’re just eating rabbit food.”

Derek looked pointedly at Stiles and raised his eyebrows in an obvious _'I told you'_ expression, and Stiles rolled his eyes dramatically.

“There’s chicken and rice, too, Dad,” He told him. “But you have to eat the salad!”

“Mmm, chicken,” Noah hummed, backing out of the kitchen.

“And salad!”

“Boy, do I love chicken.”

“Dad!”

* * *

After helping Noah with the dishes after dinner, Derek had gone upstairs and crawled into Stiles’ bed to wait for him to get out of the shower. He situated the extra pillow against the headboard and leaned against it, relaxing into the strong scent of Stiles and the fluttering sound of the book pages he was fanning with his thumb.

Within a few minutes, Stiles limped into the room wearing a Batman pajama shirt and a pair of Spider-Man shorts --which was definitely a comic book _crime_...who taught this kid how to dress himself?-- and his undried hair was stuck down flat to his forehead, dripping water down the sides of his flushed face.

The smell of pain permeated the room and Derek’s wolf crept towards the surface, alarmed.

“You’re hurt.”

“The ground beat me up, remember?” Stiles winced as he got into the bed beside Derek. “I think I’m dying.”

“You’re not,” Derek assured him.

“Everything is definitely broken, Der. I’m serious.” Stiles moved Derek’s arm to snuggle into his side. He laid down and leaned his head against the teenager’s chest, looking down at the book as Derek opened to the first page.

“You’ll live.”

Derek began reading the first chapter, but the smell of pain and the dull ache coming from their pack bond was distracting. He made it to the second page, before moving his hand to Stiles’ upper arm. Black lines climbed up the back of his hand and his forearm and Stiles slumped further against him with a relieved sigh. Derek felt the tenderness climb up his arm, but it wasn’t too bad. Stiles really was dramatic. He didn’t remove his hand until he felt the pack bond ease back into comfort, and then he realized that Stiles had fallen asleep.

So much for reading.

He waited for several minutes, absentmindedly running his fingers through Stiles’ wet hair as he looked around his room at the framed photographs and superhero posters hung on the walls. There had to be about thirty pictures of the Hales in here. Many were of Allison and Stiles, but there were also several of the wolves. Their eyes were closed to avoid the glare, but it looked fairly natural. Mostly laughing or Stiles purposefully covering their eyes, so it looked more like they were being silly, rather than purposefully unable to show their eyes. Derek saw one on the wall closest to the bed of himself and Stiles. They were both facing away from the camera, Stiles on his back, while they looked out at the woods. Derek had the same photo in his room, on his desk.

Once he was sure that Stiles wouldn’t stir awake by the movement of him slipping out of the bed, he carefully did without jostling the boy too much. Then he walked over to the always-open window and dragged his fingers along the sill, before climbing out into the night.

* * *

Peter and Christopher were sitting at the table on the porch, waiting for Derek to return home. It would be easiest to talk to him outside, away from all the prying ears. They hadn’t been waiting long, before Peter’s attention was drawn to a pair of golden eyes at the edge of the lawn, low to the ground as if Derek was on all fours.

“Hello, Nephew,” Peter greeted, his voice careful. He wasn’t completely certain how present Derek’s wolf was at the moment and it always put him slightly on edge when he was shifted around Christopher. Peter wasn’t a fan of _any_ wolves around his very human, vulnerable mate, but that was the price of living in a pack.

The two glowing orbs disappeared and Derek’s shadowed figure stood up slowly. He shook his head as if trying to clear his thoughts, then crept forward. 

As he approached the two of them, Derek sniffed and looked between Peter and Christopher with apprehension. “What’s wrong?”

“We wanted to talk to you about something, if you have a second,” Christopher said. He pushed a chair out with his foot for Derek to sit down, but the wolf didn’t make any move to do so.

Derek nodded once, prompting them to say what they needed to, before he slinked up the steps and crouched on the ground with his back against the column.

“There isn’t a great way to say this, so...Claudia is sick,” Peter told him bluntly, figuring it would be best to just get it out into the open. “She has a very serious illness that is stripping her of...well, what makes her Claudia. Her memories, her personality, her emotions, her sanity. It’s progressing quickly.”

Derek tensed and his eyebrows lowered. “She’s dying?”

“Yes,” Christopher confirmed. “We wanted to tell you before Noah talked to Stiles, since he’ll probably come to you when he finds out. We wanted you to be prepared.”

“Stiles,” Derek breathed, looking away at the woods and clenching his fists. His breathing was increasing and his eyes flickered golden again as panic began rolling off of him. “This is...he’s gonna…”

Peter smelled the chemosignals emanating from his nephew and assured him, “He will be fine. He has the pack and we will all be there for him. And, of course, you won’t be responsible for anything with him. Nobody expects you to help him through this alone. We just wanted you to know so you would be prepared for when he comes to you, since he tends to favor you. If it’s ever too much to deal with or--”

“It won’t be,” Derek cut him off, a low growl in his chest as he glared at Peter. “I’ll help him.”

“We know,” Christopher said. “We just wanted to be clear that this isn’t your responsibility. You can always send Stiles our way if you need to.”

Derek nodded slowly, but his eyes were hard in a way that Peter figured meant Derek wasn’t going to even consider handing Stiles over to anyone, which wasn’t surprising.

“When is Noah gonna tell him?” 

“After his birthday next week.”

Derek nodded again and his jaw shifted forward a bit as he chewed the inside of his lip nervously. “What’s it called?”

“What?” Peter asked.

“Claudia.”

“Frontotemporal Dementia,” Christopher answered.

The three of them remained on the porch for a few more seconds in silence, before Derek looked at Peter and then towards the door and the man nodded. Derek disappeared into the house and Peter could hear him running up the stairs towards his room.

“That went well,” He noted.

“That’s because nothing has happened yet and he barely knows Claudia,” Christopher reasoned. “It probably won’t go as well when Stiles is affected. We need to keep an eye on them both.”

"I'm aware. Everything will be fine," Peter said, but his voice pitched slightly higher at the end as if it may have been at least partially a question.

"Of course it will." Christopher nodded, reaching over the table to take Peter's hand in his. "That's why we have pack."


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles squinted against the bright sunlight pouring into his room from the window and nearly opted to bury himself under his blankets to get a few more minutes of sleep, before he remembered something vitally important about the day.

“I’m nine!” Stiles gasped as he bolted upright and clambered out of bed, somehow managing to make it onto his feet without the blankets sending him tumbling onto the ground. He rushed out of the bedroom and into the bathroom across the hall, before skidding to a stop in front of the large mirror above the sink.

He inspected his reflection for several long seconds, before a grin broke out across his face.

“Good morning, birthday boy,” Noah said, appearing in the doorway. He was still in his plaid pajamas that Stiles thought would look a lot better in blue than red, but apparently his dad wanted to impersonate Santa Claus or something.

“I got taller now that I’m nine.”

Noah chuckled and shook his head. “Not so sure that’s how it works.”

“You know _werewolves_ exist, but you don’t think _growing_ is possible?”

“I really wish I could argue that,” Noah mused.

Stiles smirked at him in the mirror while dragging a brush through his messy hair.

“What time are we going to the pack house?”

“I just got off the phone with Peter and it looks like they’re all waiting on you, so...whenever you’re ready.”

“And you didn’t _tell_ me?” Stiles squawked, quickly flattening his hair down the best that he could with his hands and throwing the brush in the drawer. “I thought they’d still be _asleep_! Jeez, Dad, you have to tell me these things.”

“I literally just came in here.”

“Is mom coming?”

“Uh, no...she’s tired this morning,” Noah sighed, dragging his hands down his face. “We’ll be home later to have a birthday dinner, though. Maybe we can get some take out or something.”

“She’s been tired a lot,” Stiles noted before he could stop himself.

She'd been acting odd for awhile. Stiles was pretty sure the 'tired' started about six months prior, where she'd simply be less talkative some days and took more naps than usual. Then she stopped leaving the house. Nowadays it seemed like she couldn't even leave her bedroom. Stiles had wanted to bring it up with Noah, but if his dad wasn’t saying anything yet, there was probably a reason.

“Yeah...I know she has,” Noah said. He reached over and ruffled Stiles’ hair. “Let’s go see the pack, huh?”

Stiles nodded and smiled at him. “Maybe put on different clothes, Dad. I love you, but I can’t be seen outside with Plaid Santa.”

* * *

As soon as they walked into the pack house, Peter was waiting for them in the entryway. 

“My favorite godson, here to brighten my day.”

“Do you have another one hidden in the basement that I don’t know about?” Stiles raised an eyebrow at him.

“You know about Sammy?” Peter gasped in faux surprise.

Stiles rolled his eyes and went into Peter’s open arms, hugging him tightly and rubbing his cheek against the man’s. Peter ran his hand down the back of Stiles’ head in return.

Noah was glad he raised his son around wolves. The kid settled more into pack life than Talia, in his opinion. Always trying to include everyone by hanging out with them or scenting them at every given chance. He would make a perfect mate for a werewolf. Hell, he’d make a perfect werewolf—but Noah wasn’t quite ready to deal with the idea of anyone biting his son.

“You’re definitely taller today,” Peter said, and Stiles pulled away to throw an cocky look over at Noah.

“I _told_ you!”

“Jesus,” Noah sighed.

Derek huffed from the living room, slightly startling Noah with his sudden appearance, and shook his head at Stiles.

“Nobody asked for your opinion, grumpy wolf.” Stiles squinted at him.

“Didn’t say anything.”

“Mhm.” 

“Still short.”

“I _will_ fight you.”

Derek raised his arms out to his sides and waved him forward, welcoming the challenge.

Before Stiles could make the stupid decision to attempt taking on a teenage werewolf, Malia’s voice exclaimed from the stairs, “Stiles!”

“Mal!” He yelled back, meeting her enthusiasm.

She flew to him and grabbed him into a hug, before lifting him off the ground while rubbing her face into the side of his neck.

“Too tight,” Derek said, a slight growl to his tone.

Malia instantly loosened the grip and set him back on his feet. Stiles sucked in a breath, before laughing and hugging her tighter. 

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Derek thinks I’m more breakable than I am.”

“Oh! I was supposed to come tell you that Cora and Allie are finishing your birthday present. I helped a little, but they kicked me out. _Apparently_ I'm too messy.”

Stiles took her hands in his and smiled down at the glitter, small blue construction paper scraps, and dried glue stuck to them. 

“Messy isn’t always bad,” Stiles told her. “I know I’ll love it!”

“Do I get hugs, or am I making your birthday breakfast for free?” Chris asked, coming into the entryway from the kitchen. Stiles ran and jumped up, throwing his arms around him. Chris easily caught him and said, “Happy birthday, Kiddo.”

“Thanks!”

Noah watched Stiles leave Chris and walk over towards Derek, who was obviously trying his hardest to look put-out by the way Stiles pulled him down into a hug, yet proceeded to scent him nonetheless. Noah would never use the word “soft” to describe Derek, except when he was around Stiles. It warmed his heart.

Noah would never be able to explain how grateful he was to have the Hales in his and Stiles’ lives. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t have been as happy in life without them. It was always such a shame that Claudia never found comfort in pack life.

“You okay?” Chris asked him, putting his arm over his shoulders and pulling him out of his thoughts.

“Just thinking.” Noah leaned into him. 

“That can be dangerous.”

“Sometimes,” Noah agreed. “But I’m just glad that Stiles and I have you guys. I’m glad we didn’t kill each other in high school.”

“Not for a lack of trying,” Peter said, walking over to them. “You were faster than you looked and Chris had a gun.”

“I had a lot of guns, actually.”

* * *

It didn’t smell like anything was cooking yet, so Derek figured they had some time before breakfast would be ready. Standing around with the adults for who knows how long didn’t seem like something he particularly wanted to do, so he looked over at Stiles --who was luckily already watching him-- and nodded towards the stairs. Stiles started up towards the bedrooms and Derek followed after him.

They walked into his room and he lightly kicked the door shut before leaping onto the bed and arranging the blankets and pillows to get comfortable. Stiles made a beeline for the stereo sitting on the middle shelf of the bookcase and hummed thoughtfully as he looked through the cloth CD case.

“Radiohead or Cranberries?”

“Don’t care.”

“You don’t care, or you know you’ll just let me pick either way?”

It was definitely the latter. Derek had preferences, but it was easiest to just allow Stiles to choose so he wouldn’t have to listen to the complaining or the explanations about why Stiles’ pick would have been a better choice. Plus, happy Stiles was always better than bored Stiles.

“Just pick,” Derek told him.

“Such a softie wolf.” Stiles smiled, taking the CD out of the case and putting it into the stereo.

“I will throw you out my window.”

“You love me too much.”

 _Yes_. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“Mhmm,” Stiles hummed, his grin melting into a knowing smirk. He pressed a button and _Creep_ by Radiohead filled the room. As the first verse began, Stiles turned to Derek with a faux seriousness as he pretended to serenade him and swayed to the music. “When you were here before...couldn’t look you in the eye.” 

Derek raised an unimpressed eyebrow at his antics and Stiles somehow took that as encouragement to walk towards him. He scooted away a little as Stiles got closer to the bed. What a dork.

“You’re just like an angel,” Stiles sang, putting his knee up on the mattress as he began climbing onto it. “Your skin makes me cry.”

“Shut up,” Derek told him, an unintentional warmth in his eyes betraying the stern expression on his face. 

“You float like a feather,” Stiles continued, throwing himself across Derek’s lap dramatically and singing into his fist like a microphone. With his other hand, he reached up to try to touch Derek’s cheek, but he swatted it away before he could. “In a beautiful world.”

“Get off.”

“I wish I was special...You’re so f--ah!” Stiles’ singing was cut off by a yelp as Derek tossed him off of his lap and onto the ground.

Derek basked in the few seconds of clear music from the stereo without the younger boy’s painfully horrible singing contribution.

“But I’m a creeeeeep!” Stiles sang loudly, jumping up and onto the bed again. “I’m a weirdoooooo.”

“Understatement.” Derek snorted. 

He was a hyperactive human with werewolf behaviors and no sense of self-preservation, who had no qualms about standing up to alphas, wrestling with wolves, or befriending the pack’s most aggressive and reclusive wolf. Weird to say the _very_ least.

Stiles had the audacity to look scandalized for a moment, before holding up his fist to Derek’s face for him to sing into the ‘microphone’. Derek shook his head and pushed the hand away, but Stiles just put it back and gave him a silly, hopeful smile and those damn pleading eyes that always somehow drew out a ‘yes’ from just about anyone he used them on. 

The kid was magic or something, seriously.

“Derek!” He urged. “I need you to sing so I can play the instruments.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Derek.”  
  
“No.”

“ _Derek_.”

Those freaking eyes. _Ridiculous_.

“I wanna have control,” Derek grumbled out the tune with a very put-out expression on his face. “I want a perfect body.”

“Yeah, muscle wolf!” Stiles cheered, moving his hands like was drumming along to the beat with a pair of drumsticks.

“I want a perfect soul,” Derek sang, his frown quirking up at the corner into a lopsided grin. “I want you to notice.”

The two of them took turns singing the verses until the song ended and Stiles burst out laughing as he leaned into Derek’s side.

“I don’t know about you, Der, but if you’re asking me--”

“I’m not.”

Stiles punched Derek’s shoulder. “We sounded exactly like Radiohead.”

“Yeah...especially your drumming.”

“I’m so glad you think so, too. I wasn’t gonna say anything, because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings...but my skills were definitely the best part of our concert.”

“Brat.”

“Yeah.” Stiles shrugged.

 _“Breakfast!”_ Derek heard Uncle Chris say from downstairs and he instinctually cocked his head slightly to the side to listen. 

Noticing this, Stiles pushed him lightly. “What’s up?”

“Food’s ready.”

“Yes!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' Birthday Part 2!
> 
> Trigger Warning: towards the end, stiles has a brief panic attack and slight dissociating afterwards (I based this on my own personal experiences with panic attacks, so please respect the way I wrote it, even if it differs from your experience)

In the kitchen, Peter, Noah, and Christopher were finishing breakfast. Well, sort of. Christopher was the only one actually cooking, while Peter was just hugging him from behind, his nose brushing over the nape of his neck. Noah was seated at the kitchen table, stealing grapes from a bowl sitting in the center.

“You should call everyone down--food’s almost ready,” Christopher told his husband.

“But it’s so peaceful,” Peter argued. Breaks from the pups were few and far between, after all.

“Breakfast!” Christopher said loudly.

“I hate you with every fiber of my being.”

“Remind me to cry about that later.”

Peter reached down and pinched Christopher’s ass through his jeans, causing the man to let out a surprised yelp and spin around in his arms to face him.

“ _Excuse_ you, Mr. Hale.”

“Gross.” Laura rolled her eyes as she pointedly avoided looking at her uncles on her way over to the table. Jackson was right behind her, giving his parents a disgusted look at the blatant PDA.

Within a few minutes, everyone had made it downstairs and were seated around the table, dishing themselves up. 

“Okay, I know we’re supposed to wait until after breakfast for presents...but I just have to give this to you!” Allison said excitedly, putting a 3-picture frame in front of Stiles, complete with photos of him and the girls. The black frame was decorated with small blue construction paper shapes and lots of glitter. “We made it for you! Well, Papa bought the frame and printed the pictures out, but Cora, Malia and I decorated it!”

“Happy birthday, Stiles!” Cora grinned.

“Wow, thank you!” Stiles said happily, running his fingers gently across the frame. He looked up at Noah across the table and asked, “Can you help me put this in my room tonight? I have to hang it up right when I get home, okay? Or maybe tomorrow, if we’re too busy. But will you help me please?”

“Of course. That’s a pretty nice present, girls. You did a great job decorating.”

“Thank you,” Allison said proudly.

“Okay, now no more presents until after breakfast. Eat your food before it gets cold,” Christopher told them pointedly.

“Too late.” Malia grumbled as she poked at her eggs. “ _I_ think we should eat the cake with breakfast.”

“Yes!” Cora and Stiles agreed loudly, pumping their fists in the air.

“I’m absolutely positive that that’s a horrible idea...but I do think cake sounds really great,” Peter reasoned.

“You want to give them cake for breakfast?” Christopher raised an eyebrow at him.

“It’s early, so they can run off the sugar...and it leaves more of this delicious breakfast for us...I’m not seeing a whole lot of downside with the idea,” Noah added.

“Wait...does that mean _yes_?” Cora asked, her eyebrows furrowed in disbelief.

“Sure.” Christopher shrugged.

Cora and Stiles scrambled out of their chairs and towards the cake sitting on the counter, but Cora held her arm out to stop Stiles from getting too close to the cake.

“Don’t touch it...you’ll drop it,” She explained.

“So? If we eat it fast, it can count as the five second rule.”

“Why does it matter if it falls on the ground?” Malia asked confusedly. “We aren’t gonna die from some dirt. Even the humans.”

“Unless someone is throwing the cake on the floor, this conversation is pointless. And if that’s the plan, tell me so I can be ready to record it,” Laura told them, holding up her phone.

Cora moved he cake to the table and set it down. Before Peter could even suggest getting a knife, the pups dug into the once-beautiful blue cake with their forks.

“Sure, why not?” Peter sighed. “Serving utensils are overrated, anyway. As are candles. And table manners. All things of the past.”

Stiles went to shovel a large bite into his mouth, but before he could, he was splattered in the face with a glob of cake and frosting. Cora bursted into laughter, her fork still held up from where she had used it as a catapult.

“You _caked_ me!” Stiles accused, a bright mischief gleaming in his eyes.

“Happy birthday to your face!” Malia giggled.

Stiles grabbed a bare fistful of cake and threw it at Malia, hitting her in the face with the dessert, too

“So stupid,” Jackson commented, watching the disaster unfold.

Malia squinted at her brother, before grabbing two full handfuls of cake and tackling him off of his chair. She held him down as she smeared the cake all over his face and neck.

Cora shouted excitedly at the idea and grabbed more cake, before throwing it at Stiles. He scooped it off his shirt with his fingers and threw it back at her. They used their hands to smear it all over each other until they slipped onto the ground beside the twins, wrestling.

“What is even going on? How did this happen in like fifteen seconds?” Laura asked in surprise.

“It’s like mud wrestling...but with cake,” Noah said thoughtfully.

“I’m not cleaning that up,” Christopher told them.

“Nose goes.” Peter said quickly, before putting his index finger to his nose. Noah quickly did the same, with Laura and Derek following suit.

“Seriously?” Christopher scoffed. “How old are you people? You can touch your noses all you want--this sticky, sugary disaster is _all_ your fault. You voted cake for breakfast. Have fun with that.”

* * *

Upon getting home, Stiles went straight to the kitchen with the Tupperware of mangled leftover cake that he was adamant on bringing home for later. Noah was pretty sure the intention was to share with Claudia, but it didn’t look as appetizing now as it did when it was still intact, so...it was likely just going to be for Stiles.

Noah walked into the kitchen and put his car keys on the counter. Stiles was standing in front of the refrigerator, looking in at something curiously.

“What’s up, Son?”

The boy reached in and pulled out a box of tissues and a roll of toilet paper. He looked over at Noah with concern etched into his forehead. “What’s wrong with Mom? She does this a lot.”

Noah stared at the bathroom items for a moment, before looking down at his feet and trying to keep his composure. If he appeared anxious, it would influence Stiles.

“Why don’t you go get showered and then I’ll meet you in your room, okay?” Noah proposed.

Stiles hesitated a moment as if he wanted to argue, but then silently nodded, shut the refrigerator door, and walked out of the room.

Noah let out a shaky breath once he was alone and pinched the bridge of his nose. How the hell was he supposed to approach this conversation? He thought he’d get that night to figure out a more solid game plan, but apparently Stiles wanted to talk about this on his _birthday_. Jesus, how awful. Would this ruin future birthdays? Noah couldn’t just push it off when Stiles was directly asking him about it, though.

He grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the top of the fridge and poured it over a cup of ice as he mentally went over all of the parenting websites he read regarding talking to kids about terminal illnesses. He still felt completely lost. How much was he supposed to tell him in one sitting? How much was he supposed to withhold for now? Honestly, that was probably a pointless question, since Stiles always wanted all of the information. The likelihood that Stiles would allow the conversation to take place over several days, as most websites suggested, was slim to none.

As he finished the drink, he felt his nerves calm a bit. Perfect.

He walked upstairs and into his son’s room, where Stiles was already waiting for him on his bed. He probably wasn’t clean, since showers that were less than five minutes were usually just standing in the water and then getting out. He probably shouldn’t have had him do that before a conversation he was eager for. Oh well. There were bigger issues at hand.

“Are you gonna tell me now?” Stiles asked.

“Yeah,” Noah said, moving over to sit on the bed with him. “I...I’m not sure how to talk about this, honestly.” 

Too honest. Just be straightforward, Noah! Get it together. 

He continued, “Okay, so...Mom has been feeling pretty sick lately. I’m sure you’ve noticed that she’s been acting a little weird.”

“Like putting random things in the fridge and sleeping all the time,” Stiles supplied, to which Noah nodded.

“Exactly. So...Mom went to the doctor a little while ago and they told her that her brain was sick with something called frontotemporal dementia. It’s a big word that basically means her sickness is making her brain stop working the way it’s supposed to.”

“Sick? Like...does she need to take medicine? Can she give it to us?”

“Uh, no...it’s not a sickness like that. You can’t catch it or anything. You can hug her and sit next to her and everything and you’ll be perfectly safe, okay? The sickness won’t hurt us, but it’s...it isn’t going to go away. A lot of big changes will happen with her and she’ll keep acting weird. It’ll get more weird later on. It might be a little challenging...ah, scratch that, kid--it’s gonna be hard. It’ll maybe feel a little scary sometimes when Mom’s sickness will make her do things that don’t make sense, but I promise you that you will be okay. I’m here for you and so are the Hales. Peter and Chris know all about her sickness and I told them to tell Derek, so...he’ll know, too. If you have any questions or feelings that you want to talk about, you can always come talk to us.”

“That sounds like...like she’s not gonna get better. Didn’t she go to the doctor?”

“The doctors can’t…” Noah took a steadying breath, before collecting himself. “They can’t fix this sickness, but Mom’s doing everything she can to stay as healthy as possible right now.”

“Is she dying?” Stiles asked bluntly, his brown eyes large and wary. 

“Stiles, I think we should take a break for the night--”

“Dad,” He pressed. “Is she?”

“Yeah,” Noah whispered. “Not right now, but like I said before, her sickness is making her brain stop working right. Your brain is very important and it makes your body work. So when her sickness gets worse, her body will stop working and it’ll be time for her to...to leave us. She doesn’t want to. She loves you and I more than anything and she would give _anything_ to stay with us, but--”

“She’s not _leaving_ , she’s...she’s _dying_ . That’s...that’s _forever_. I don’t want her to die,” Stiles said, tears pooling in his eyes. “I don’t want her to go away.”

Noah’s heart ached as Stiles’ breathing increased and the first tear escaped from the corner of his eye and rolled down his cheek.

“Stiles, listen to me, it’s going to be okay.”

“No, no it won’t!” Stiles argued vehemently. “I won’t have a mom anymore! I can’t...I can’t...what about the laundry? Or, or nighttime snuggles? She’s been too tired...she’s _always_ going to be too tired? I _never_ get them again? What about...what about _Pierogi_? You don’t know how to make it and I don’t know how to make it and it’s my favorite. She can’t--”

Noah reached out to hug Stiles or offer some sort of physical comfort, but Stiles quickly pushed his arms away and backed up against the wall, a sob wracking through his small body as he stared down at the Star Wars comforter. 

“I know how to do laundry and I can come in here and give you nighttime snuggles. She’s not dying right now, Stiles, she’s okay. She can still teach us how to make Pierogi. We can do it together tonight, if you want. We have the stuff for it.”

“It won’t be the same,” Stiles cried, his arms coming up to hug himself. Noah had to stop himself from reaching out again, since his son obviously didn’t want the touch at the moment. He was entitled to dealing with the news however he was most comfortable, so Noah wasn’t going to push.

“No, Stiles, but it will be okay. You’ll be okay--you have a big family that loves you and your mom will love you even after she’s gone.”

“She can’t _die_!” Stiles buried his face in his hands and let out another heartbreaking strangled cry.

Noah subtly wiped his thumb under his eye, collecting his own tears before Stiles could notice them. He needed to keep it together right then, for his son.

Suddenly, there was a light tap on the window pane and Derek was there looking in at Stiles.

“Come in,” Noah told him and Derek slid the window open to slip into the room with practiced ease.

He came directly to the bed and sat beside Stiles, close enough for Stiles to sway a little at the dip in the mattress, but not enough to be fully against him. He slowly reached out and brushed his fingers through Stiles’ hair, and the boy leaned his head into the touch.

“If you have any questions for me, just let me know. I love you,” Noah said as he stood up. He knew that Stiles needed time to process and it was obvious that his mate was better suited company for him at the moment. He left the room and headed towards the stairs. He had barely made it to the second step, before dropping down to sit on the stairs and clamp his hand over his mouth as he choked out a sob.

* * *

Stiles felt as if every breath was too short and it was causing a deep ache to form in his chest. His head was pounding in his ears and his body was shaking uncontrollably.

“What’s h-happen-ing to m-me?” He asked, holding his arms firmly around himself to prevent falling apart. 

“You need to breathe, Mischief,” Derek said softly, continuing the soft brushing through his hair. 

Stiles knew the touch felt comforting --or rather, it _should've_ felt comforting-- but he could hardly feel it at all. All he could feel was the hurt and the suffocation and the fear ringing in every part of his body. Actually, it was questionable if he had a body at all. The only thing he could really feel was his chest and his head _squeezing_.

He gasped out, “I c-can’t.”

“Copy me,” Derek instructed.

Stiles forced his puffy eyes open and watched as the teenager raised his arms up in the air and inhaled a deep breath, before slowly lowering his arms and exhaling. Derek nodded his encouragement and did it again. This time, Stiles shakily tried to do it with him. His breath hitched every few seconds from his diaphragm spasming, but with every exhale and lowering of his arms, he felt a bit of that fear ebbing away. The breaths came a little easier each time, a bit more filling.

After fifteen reps, Stiles found himself in an odd state of muteness. His feelings seemed almost far away and numbed down, his mind was void of thoughts for the first time he could recall, and his senses felt far away --almost like he was under water. On the sixteenth exhale, Stiles collapsed sideways into Derek and the wolf held him against his chest. The arms around him felt anchoring, as if Stiles was going to either sink, float, or maybe even just dissolve without them. He stared blankly ahead at the open doorway for a few minutes as he relaxed into the steady rise and fall of Derek’s chest on the back of his head. 

“How did she get sick?”

“It just happens to some people,” Derek answered. “It’s nobody’s fault or anything. It just happens sometimes.”

“Is it gonna happen to Dad?”

“No, it shouldn’t.”

“What _will_ happen to Dad?” Stiles asked quietly. “He’s gonna be so sad, too.”

“Yeah...it’s okay, though. To be sad. It’s normal. You’ll be okay...I _promise_ , Stiles. I’m always here...same with my uncles and the girls. You and your dad aren't alone.”

“Okay,” Stiles sighed, his eyes lowering as he let Derek’s breathing lull him towards sleep. “Stay?”

“Yeah.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this yesterday, but I accidentally fell asleep before finishing it. Then I woke up this morning and had to attend online school all day (who told me I should take Children's Literature, Childhood Developmental Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Communications, and Biology Lab??? I just wanna talk)..but HERE IS THE NEXT CHAPTER...and it's like twice as long as usual, oops

Peter hummed contentedly as he was pulled awake by gentle kisses being pressed into the back of his bare shoulder. He felt Christopher’s familiar hand slide over his hip and trail up the side of his torso, before moving along his chest.

“G’morning,” Peter mumbled sleepily as he rolled over onto his back and looked up at his husband.

“Good morning.” Christopher said softly, before leaning down to kiss him. He ran his tongue over Peter’s bottom lip, but the latter shook his head. 

“I need to brush my teeth.”

“I’ll live,” He assured him, trying to move in again to cover Peter’s mouth with his own. He was stopped by a hand on his chest.

“You also need to brush your teeth.”

“You’ll live, too.”

Christopher moved to straddle his hips and ran his fingers over the coarse hair along his lover's jaw that was starting to grow out. Peter’s hands immediately went to Christopher's thighs as he grinded against him, and he groaned while nodding almost frantically. “I’ll definitely live.”

“I thought so,” Cristopher laughed.

Just as Peter was about to get laid for the first time in a week, there was a knock at the door --which was seriously a borderline _crime._

“Just ignore it,” Peter whispered.

“Who is it?” Chris asked him quietly.

“My sister.”

“Right...just our Alpha.”

“I can hear you guys,” Talia called through the door agitatedly and Peter clenched his jaw.

Gods, he despised his sister’s existence.

Christopher tried to slide off of Peter’s lap, but the wolf pulled him down again.

“Later,” Christopher promised, nipping Peter’s earlobe playfully.

This time, Peter let him get up and go to the door. He didn’t bother putting a shirt on, which Peter was highly appreciative of as it allowed him to ogle the back muscles that somehow seemed to gain _more_ definition as he got older. He really did have the most attractive husband. He _must_ have done something extraordinarily good in another life to deserve him, because it certainly wasn’t in this lifetime.

As soon as the door was opened, Talia said, “Satomi will be coming over shortly to discuss an important matter and I would like you two to be dressed and downstairs before she gets here.”

“You couldn’t have just said that through the door? Or a text?” Peter asked, annoyance dripping from his voice.

“She’ll be here in an hour, so...get up,” Talia ignored him.

She left and Christopher closed the door. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“I could join you?” Peter proposed.

“Well...it _is_ your shower, too.” Christopher smirked, a flirtatious glint in his eye as he went into the bathroom attached to their room.

All these years, and that man still had him feeling like a teenager.

* * *

Derek almost made it. He had nearly reached the front door, before he heard his mother’s footsteps quickly approaching him from behind and his wolf tensed on alert. He spun around and his eyes swept over her scrutinizingly, trying to assess what she needed from him. Her face was tight and he could smell the anxiety coming off of her.

_Alpha’s scared. Danger?_

“Where are you going?” She asked.

“Stilinskis.”

“You can’t--not today.”

_Sitles is sad. Alone. Have to go to him!_

“Why?” Derek asked, indignance seeping into his tone.

“Alpha Ito is coming over soon and I need you to be present.”

What was the point of sticking around just because another Alpha was coming over? He didn’t know her, so it wasn’t like she would miss him or anything. As long as his mom, Laura, and his uncles were there, it should’ve been fine. Definitely not a reason for him to not go see Stiles while he’s going through such a hard time.

His mother must have noticed his annoyance, because she went on to say, “Derek, you’re my son and you need to prioritize being around for things like this over hanging out with a nine year old.”

“I don’t know her.”

“That doesn’t--” Talia shook her head and took a steadying breath. “I don’t understand why I even need to explain this to you. It’s polite. When an Alpha comes over, the entire pack should be around to greet her and welcome her into our territory. It doesn’t matter if you personally know her--she’s been an allied Alpha since long before you or I were even born.”

Derek wanted to argue that she wouldn’t even notice that he wasn’t there, since she had never met him. She wasn’t coming for him. He wasn’t the Alpha Heir, he wasn’t the next-in-line to be Left Hand, and he wasn’t communicative enough to be a future Right Hand. He would likely never be interacting with other Alphas. Whatever.

“Why don’t you go sit with your sister so we don’t have to track you down?” Talia suggested, motioning towards the living room, where Cora was on the couch.

Derek wordlessly moved around his mom and went over to the couch to wait for Alpha Ito. He would go see Stiles later.

“I’m gonna ask Uncle Peter if we can go to the diner after this,” Cora told him. Derek looked over at her, so she continued, “I think if we’re polite or whatever, he’ll say yes. If I don’t get a milkshake after having to wear this stupid dress, I’m just...actually--I’ll just run away and do it anyway, even if he says no. You wanna come?”

Derek snorted in amusement and nodded. 

_Stiles needs food._

Maybe he’d get him curly fries or something?

Loud stomping down the stairs drew Derek’s attention to the entryway as the twins came into view. Jackson was looking proud with his carefully styled hair and the new button-up shirt he was wearing, while Malia was glowering down at her yellow sundress. Her fists were clenched tightly at her sides and Derek could smell her vexation from his spot on the couch.

“Laura made me wear a dress,” She growled.

“Join the club,” Cora sighed. She slumped into the cushions and slid a little until her head neared Derek’s shoulder. He shifted towards her to let her know that it was fine and she leaned her head fully against him. “I hate everything.”

“You guys are being stupid.” Jackson rolled his eyes. “Laura was just trying to make you look good for once, instead of like wild animals.”

“We _are_ , technically,” Malia reasoned. “I’m a werewolf, Jax. I’m not made to wear dresses! How can I even play outside in this?”

“You don’t--you’ll get it dirty.”

“Dresses are stupid.”

Cora nodded her approval. “I look fine without it.”

“Well, better than Malia,” Jackson agreed. “She always has dirt on her.”

“Not all the time!” She exclaimed. “You act like I don’t shower.”

“ _Do_ you?”

“You _know_ I do!” She shoved him and he stumbled backwards into Laura, who righted him and glared at the pups.

“Knock it off!” She seethed, brushing a tendril of her dark hair from her face. She was wearing a black dress with matching heeled boots and several gold bracelets dangling from each wrist. She looked like she was going to a funeral. If Derek didn’t know that she was taking this Alpha visit as seriously as their mother, he’d have wondered if she was mourning the death of their afternoon as much as he was. “Derek, why are you dressed like that? You’re supposed to look _nice_.”

Derek looked down at his outfit in confusion. He was wearing a black Henley with thumb holes in the sleeves, a pair white distressed jeans, and red high top skate shoes. “Do I need bracelets? Or I could curl my hair?”

“Why do you always have to be so stressful?”

“Why do you always have to have a stick up your butt?” Cora questioned her, a challenging glint in her eye. “I think he looks fine.”

Derek flashed a smile at Cora, then raised an eyebrow at his older sister.

“Whatever,” She huffed.

* * *

It took about thirty minutes for Peter and Christopher to come downstairs and Peter wanted nothing more than to either retreat back up to their room or run out the front door. For a moment, he wondered if he could. If Talia would chase him into the woods and drag him back, or if he’d actually be able to escape. Sadly, he figured the odds were probably against him. Plus, he couldn’t leave the pups with Talia --especially not while she was being so temperamental. 

“What took you so long?” Talia asked from the base of the stairs, her arms crossed over her chest.

“My sincerest apologies. We would have been down sooner, but I was adamantly against it,” Peter told her honestly, earning a glare from his older sister that made him smile. “It took a few minutes for Christopher to drag me out of the room.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Thank you.”

Talia looked like she was considering giving him a lecture, but fortunately decided that prepping the pups was a better use of the remaining time they had.

“Alright, so I need everyone to be on their best behaviors. Peter, don’t be a smart mouth. Derek, no scowling. Malia and Cora, just...just don’t.”

Peter rolled his eyes and said, “She means don’t be children. Smile very stiffly like you’re in pain, don’t let any amount of happiness show, and don’t make a sound.”

“Can you be helpful for once?”

“I’d like to argue that I’m the second most helpful adult in this house behind my husband, actually.”

“This _really_ isn’t the day for you to be in a mood, Peter,” Talia growled, stepping towards him as her eyes glowed. 

Peter instinctively looked down and tilted his head to bare his neck, her anger filling his senses in a way his wolf cowered to.

“This is pointless,” Christopher cut in. “Kids, use your manners when Alpha Ito is around and do your best to make her feel welcome. Pretend you’d like to be here, please.”

He looked over at Peter pointedly and Peter looked to the side in annoyance, before turning his sights on Talia.

“I’ll behave from here on out. Today, I mean.”

“I’d appreciate it. Your mood was getting old pretty fast.”

“I’m only in a ‘mood’ because you stole a morning from me that I think --actually, I _know_ \-- would have been exceptionally better than this.”

“Jesus.” Talia sneered in disgust. Christopher turned his face to the ground in a poor attempt to hide his amusement.

“She’s here,” Derek announced, looking towards the window.

Peter tilted his head slightly, trying to listen for any indication of someone approaching, and sure enough, there was the faint sound of a car coming up the street. 

“Best behavior,” Talia reminded them as the car parked in their driveway.

Gods forbid Satomi saw that Talia’s pack wasn’t picture perfect.

Before the visiting Alpha had the chance to knock, Talia had opened the door with an award-winning smile.

“Satomi, how wonderful to see you again. Please, come in.”

“Likewise, Dear,” She returned cordially as she stepped into the entryway. She looked side to side, taking in the living room and kitchen and then noticed, “I don’t think I’ve been here since Roland was the Hale Alpha, but it’s like nothing has changed.”

Peter wasn’t sure if she meant it as a casual observation or a subtle callout on the fact that they desperately needed a living room makeover. Either way, Peter was using it as his excuse to redo the room at the soonest chance. He had been wanting to get rid of the evidence of his parents’ poor decorating tastes for years, but Talia always assured him that it wasn’t necessary. Maybe now she’d agree.

“Yes, it’s been quite some time,” Talia said. “Were pleased to have you.”

Peter was almost embarrassed by how thick Talia was laying it on. He’d never seen her want someone’s approval so badly --it was unnerving. He supposed it made sense, though, since Satomi was one of their father’s closest friends.

“I believe you’ve met once before when she was shadowing me at the last Summit, but this is my Alpha Heir Laura.” Talia motioned towards her daughter proudly.

“It’s nice to see you again, Alpha Ito,” Laura greeted her amiably.

“And you, Laura.” Satomi nodded. She looked over to Christopher and Peter and acknowledged, “Peter, Chris.”

“Satomi, you look wonderful as always,” Peter complimented. “How is it that you look younger and more rejuvenated every time I see you? Please, share your secrets. I had to pluck out a grey hair the other day and it nearly ruined me.”

“Always a charmer,” She laughed. "Careful with this one, Chris. He’ll steal everyone’s hearts.”

“Tell me about it,” Christopher sighed, throwing an affectionate glance at his husband.

“These are our miscreants--I mean the pups,” Peter joked as he directed her attention to the living room, where the kids were standing. Talia scowled as if she were ready to kill him. Perfect. “Mr. Teenager is Derek, then beside him is Cora and on her other side is Allison. Then the twins: Malia and Jackson.”

“You are a handsome bunch,” Satomi said. “I wish I could spend more time socializing, but I _am_ here for a reason, unfortunately. Perhaps we could go into your office, Talia?”

“Of course. Would you like anything before we get to business? Tea?”

“I’d love some, since you’re offering.” 

“I’ll make it, then. Maybe Chris and Peter can make coffee, too,” Talia suggested, looking at Peter and nodding her head towards the kitchen.

Damn, he was in trouble.

* * *

Alpha Ito entered further into the living room as the rest of the adults and Laura went into the kitchen, which Derek hadn’t really expected. She was small --about a head shorter than him-- but her presence was large and powerful, and his wolf wanted to snarl in protest as she came closer. He took half of a step backwards in an attempt to calm himself. She stopped a couple of feet away from him and he was grateful that she wasn’t entirely in his space, but his wolf was very aware that she was blocking his exit. 

Alphas were not known to socialize with other pack’s children, so he really wasn’t aware that he’d be _socializing_ today. He figured he was there to look friendly--not to entertain her while his mother lectured his uncle!

_Outsider. Alpha. Trapped._

“You must be up to your ears with so many siblings,” She said, a warm smile on her face in an obvious attempt to comfort him. Of course, she must have smelled the anxiety radiating off of him. It was a fruitless effort-- no amount of smiling was going to make his wolf feel less threatened while trapped in this living room with a visiting Alpha. Especially not when he was the oldest in the room with all the pups, meaning he would be expected to protect them if anything happened.

Logically, he knew that wouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately, his wolf was not as understanding of logic.

“Oh, we aren’t his siblings. Well, Cora and Laura are,” Jackson corrected, taking the attention off of Derek. He wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not, but he was grateful to not have her intelligent eyes staring him down anymore. “Allison and Malia are my sisters.”

“That makes much more sense; I could have sworn Talia had more than one child. Forgive my mistake.”

“We like to pretend that Cora is actually our sister and Jackson is Auntie Talia’s, because we don’t want him and he likes her and Laura better anyway,” Allison amended. “And Derek can be our brother, too, if he wants. He’s grumpy, but still better than Jackson.”

“I would love to not be your brother--you are both so annoying it makes me want to rip your heads off,” Jackson growled.

“Derek would explode if he had three sisters,” Cora laughed.

“I imagine he’d be very outmatched,” the Alpha said.

“He only hates us on days that end in y,” Cora teased, looking up at him.

“That’s every day,” Jackson pointed out.

Allison looked at her younger brother, judgement written all over her face. “Duh, Jackson. That was...that was literally the whole joke.”

“Well, it was a dumb joke--nobody even laughed.”

“That’s because everyone was too busy being worried about your brain,” Cora gibed. 

Derek growled lightly and looked in their direction, and the pups instantly quieted. He really didn’t want to be the one in trouble for letting them fight in front of Alpha Ito.

“Oh, don’t stop them on my account,” Alpha Ito chuckled as she reached out in an attempt to pat his arm. Without thinking, he flinched away from her and his eyes flashed golden. As soon as he realized what had happened, he shut his eyes and mentally gripped the pack bond he had with Stiles to push his wolf back.

Shit! This wasn’t being normal or polite --his mom was going to be mad.

“He doesn’t like to be touched randomly,” Cora quickly explained. “He has a thing about personal space and territory. He doesn’t like anyone getting too close or touching him without his permission.”

“Yeah, even _we_ can’t do it,” Malia added. “Only Stiles, his anchor, can be in his space without asking.”

Jackson shook his head as Derek slowly opened his eyes again, now back to their normal green. “He’s weird. He doesn’t really talk, either.”

“He’s talking a lot more, Jax,” Allison defended him.

“That was completely my fault, Derek, and I apologize,” Alpha Ito said sincerely. “I wasn’t aware.”

“No, I’m...I’m sorry,” Derek tried, but the Alpha held her hand up to stop him.

“It is nobody’s right to touch others without their permission. I only assumed because wolves--especially born wolves--are usually more tactile in nature. It’s completely fine to not share that characteristic--you shouldn’t be apologizing. I’ll make sure to keep it in mind in our future encounters.”

Derek wasn’t sure how to answer, so he just nodded his head once and gave her a small smile. He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t expected anything about this afternoon, actually, but definitely not that. Not an Alpha apologizing to him for not considering his weirdness.

She hadn’t even done anything wrong --there was no way for her to know. Yet she still apologized? He should probably thank her, right?

Before he had the chance, Talia reentered the room.

“I’m sorry that took so long, Satomi. I put the tea in the office --we can go in now.”

“Perfect,” She said, following Talia.

* * *

Peter and Christopher stood against the wall of the office, behind Talia, while Satomi was seated across from her on the other side of the large wooden desk. Peter was mildly annoyed that he had spent the entire time in the kitchen being chastised rather than making actual coffee, because he was _bored_ , which made him tired--but yawning wasn’t going to win him any brownie points with anyone in the room. 

“I apologize again for leaving you with the pups,” Talia said as she brought the cup of tea to her lips and took a sip. “They can be a handful sometimes--I hope they weren’t too much.”

“They were perfect,” Satomi assured her, her eyes shining with amusement.

“Let me guess: Jackson versus the girls?” Peter asked, knowing that it was the most likely scenario.

“It took all of three seconds.”

“I’m so sorry,” Talia practically whined, annoyance tinging the air around her.

“Stop apologizing for your children being children.” Satomi waved her off. “I wish my pack was half as lively as that living room. I wouldn’t even need cable.”

“No, but you’d definitely need wine,” Christopher joked, a fond smile on his face. “Though, once you’re half a bottle in, they are _much_ more entertaining than cable.”

“It gets even better if you throw them in the woods and let them run wild,” Peter told her. “It’s amazing how quickly civilized children can devolve into animals--both literally and figuratively.”

“I hope I can get a chance to see it someday soon.”

“You’re always welcome to stop by and watch the chaos unfold,” Christopher invited.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She nodded. “Now, onto the more pressing matter that I’m here to speak with you about. I'm rather short on time, so I don't want to continue pushing it off.”

The room immediately darkened with the solemn fall of her face and the despondency in her scent, and the Hales leaned in a little, wondering what could have possibly affected the powerful Alpha so devastatingly.

“It’s with a heavy heart that I have to tell you that the Talbot pack now runs with the Goddess of the moon.”

“What?” Talia gasped, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. “They’re...they’ve passed? All of them?”

Satomi nodded dejectedly. “Two nights ago, their pack house was encircled with mountain ash and set aflame. The entire pack except for two pups were burned alive. I have taken the children, Brett and Lorilee, into my own pack, since they had no remaining relatives.”

There were several beats of heavy silence, where the news sunk in, and then Talia asked, “Who would have done something like that?”

“Hunters,” Christopher answered knowingly, the muscle in his jaw twitching. 

“We can only assume,” Satomi said. “I just wanted to warn you, so you can keep an eye out for any unusual activity. As of right now, we have no idea who was responsible. There are several hunting families in the area...some permanent, some passing through. I just wanted to make sure you were all aware that there are potentially hunters who have deviated from the code in our county.”

“Thank you." Talia wrung her hands and looked thoughtful. “We’ll keep an eye out and let you know if we see anything.”

“How are Brett and Lorilee?” Peter asked, his heart aching at the thought of the pups having to live through the decimation of their entire pack. 

“Shaken and sad,” Satomi sighed. “But we are providing as much comfort as we can, of course. I was actually wondering if I could maybe bring them over sometime in the near future to play with your pups? I’m afraid my pack is severely lacking in children, and I don’t think the teenagers will enjoy playing with them as often as they will need. You understand how teenagers are--I’m sure Derek wouldn’t like spending all of his free time with the kids.”

“His mate is actually nine and the girls' best friend, so...Derek ends up being dragged out to play with the pups more often than he’d probably like to. He can’t say no to Stiles,” Christopher revealed.

“Nobody can say no to Stiles. Those eyes?” Peter scoffed. “Dangerous.”

“That’s remarkable that Derek has found his mate so young. You must be so happy for him. I heard a little about Stiles in the living room--that Derek isn’t as guarded with him? That’s really great that he has someone like that.”

“We’re working on his speaking and territorial issues, if that’s what you’re referring to,” Talia commented. “We’re hopeful he will come to find a better balance with his wolf at some point and not have to rely so heavily on Stiles.”

Peter tensed at the use of ‘we’, because no-- _she_ was hoping that Derek would change. Nobody else cared--certainly not he and Christopher. She had always had the habit of speaking for him and he hated it no less now than he did as a child.

“For his _own_ peace, I hope he finds that balance, as well,” Satomi agreed, but her eyes were hard as she looked at Talia. “However, I don’t really see the importance behind getting him to allow people to touch him or be in his space whenever they please. That's something he should have the right to decline, as his body is his own. Same with speaking...he appears to have survived this long without being a social butterfly.”

Peter grinned smugly as Talia looked slightly taken aback. Finally, someone she respected had agreed that she should back off of Derek. Peter hoped to the Gods that Talia would take her advice to heart and just accept him already.

If not, Peter and Noah were more than ready to get Talia off his back. They would just have to figure out how to get Christopher on board.

Satomi then clapped her hands together in finality, efficiently ending their meeting and rising to her feet. “You’ll forgive me if I head home so soon? I don’t like leaving the new pups without an Alpha.”

“Of course.” Talia stood as well.

“Bring Brett and Lorilee over whenever you’d like--I know the kids would love a couple more playmates,” Christopher told her.

“I hope to meet Stiles next time.”

“I’m sure you will,” Talia said tightly. “He practically lives here most days.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: this book will be filled with angst
> 
> also me: throws in some sadness, then chokes you all with copious amounts of fluff and family feels

Stiles was still lying in bed, his Star Wars blanket entirely covering his head. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t planning on moving from his bed that day, anyway. 

His window thudded as it slid open as far as it would go, and then there was a dip in the mattress by his head, which would have startled him if he wasn’t so used to Derek’s odd talent of seemingly turning off the sound of his footsteps so that he could move silently. Ninja wolf.

“I don’t wanna hang out today, Derek,” Stiles whispered, but was promptly ignored.

“I met another Alpha...and I think my mom almost killed Uncle Peter,” Derek told him as he shifted the blankets to pull them over his lap. 

A worn patch of the blanket allowed just enough light through for Stiles to see the white skinny jeans on Derek’s legs. There were holes ripped in the knee areas and Stiles immediately reached out to play with the small strings coming from them.

“Your mom always wants to kill your uncle.”

“Yeah...but she was super weird today. I think Alpha Ito scared her or something.”

“Was she scary?”

“No...She was...I like her.”

Stiles nodded, his forehead rubbing against Derek’s outer thigh. After a few moments, the teenager pulled the blanket away from his face and Stiles buried his eyes into the jeans to avoid the light.

“ _Why_?” He whined.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know...I just...I don’t wanna get up today.”

“You can’t stay in bed all day, Stiles.”

“Watch me.”

“No, I mean...staying in bed alone won’t fix anything. Not her sickness. Not your sadness. So, we don’t have to leave the house today, if you don’t want to. But I’m staying. Or we can go to the diner later with the pack.”

Stiles groaned as he pushed himself into a sitting position and said dejectedly, “I just...I want to _help_. I want to help her and I don’t know how. I can’t do anything.”

They sat in silence for a little while, and then Derek suggested, “Roscoe’s dirty.”

“What?” Stiles asked, confused as to what his mom’s jeep had to do with anything.

“It’s dirty,” He repeated.

“So?” 

“So...you could clean it. That would help, right? Maybe not a lot, but a bit.”

Of course. Of course! He could clean Roscoe --his mom loved that jeep more than anything! It hadn’t been used a whole lot recently, but it was still covered in dirt and leaves. He could clean it, since she wasn’t in the right mind to do so. It was perfect.

Stiles smiled for the first time that morning and nodded. “You’ll help?”

“I’ll watch.”

* * *

Derek really should have known that watching wasn’t an option.

It started with being asked to carry the bucket of soapy water outside for Stiles, which he agreed to because Stiles was a rather wimpy nine-year-old and it wasn’t a surprise that he couldn’t lift it. 

Then, very quickly, it became apparent that Derek was vital to the car washing plan, since Stiles was not only a weak nine-year-old, but also a _short_ one. The kid was small even for his age and there was no way that he was reaching even halfway up on the jeep. 

So, when Stiles asked him for assistance, how was he supposed to say no? It’s not like Stiles could do it alone and he was about three seconds away from attempting to stand on the tire to reach higher and Derek was not about to let him slip off and break his head.

So, despite not wearing the right clothes for car washing --seriously, white jeans turned transparent when wet and showed the whole street his patterned green succulent boxers, and he had to roll the sleeves of his shirt up, which defeated the whole existence of the thumb holes-- he ended up right there beside Stiles. Because Stiles needed help. And this whole thing was Derek’s idiotic idea.

When they were almost finished, Noah came out of the house, dressed in his uniform, and gave an impressive whistle. “Good work, boys. Roscoe’s looking great.”

“It was Derek’s idea,” Stiles praised.

“Derek has great ideas.” Noah grinned appreciatively and held his fist out towards the teenager. Noah never crossed Derek’s space boundaries, but the Stilinskis were huggers--just like his pack. They were humans raised alongside wolves, so affection was very much in their nature. Derek knew that Noah was trying to pseudo-hug him for getting Stiles out of the room, so he nodded and fist-bumped him back.

Noah looked down at Stiles. “What are the plans for tonight?”

“We’re going to the diner,” Stiles told him.

Derek’s wolf preened at the achievement of not only getting Stiles out of bed, but willing to go out tonight. It was worth ruining his outfit over.

“I shouldn’t have asked--now I’m jealous,” Noah sighed. He pressed a kiss to the top of Stiles’ head and nodded in Derek’s direction, before heading over to his car. “I’ll be at work, hating everything.”

Stiles laughed and shook his head as he got back to scrubbing.

By the time the jeep was dirt-free, Derek was more than ready to get home. His jeans were starting to chafe and he wasn’t even sure how he had gotten so wet. He and Stiles both looked like they’d dumped the soapy water all over them. Car washing sucks--they should have just stolen Roscoe and taken her through the drive-thru car wash. Derek didn’t _exactly_ have a permit yet, but he was sure that it couldn’t be too difficult.

Derek grabbed the hose from the side of the house and turned it on, spraying off all of the soap.

“Hey!” Stiles yelped. “You sprayed me!”

Derek cocked an eyebrow at him and deliberately pointed the hose in his direction, before squeezing the handle to turn it on again.

“Derek!” The boy shouted as he shielded his face. When the stream of water persisted, he let out a warrior-like cry and ran at the werewolf. Derek let him tackle him to the ground and wrestle the hose from his grasp, then put his hands up over his ears to protect them from the spray that was turned on him. 

Stiles wielded the hose like a weapon, yelling victoriously as he moved the stream in jerky movements, to thoroughly soak Derek who was laughing and rolling around on the lawn in a half-assed attempt to get away from the attack.

After a minute or two, Stiles dropped the hose and collapsed onto the ground beside Derek to catch his breath. The older boy sat up and shook his head back and forth, flinging water droplets from the tips of his dark hair at Stiles.

“Bad dog.” Stiles pushed him. Derek growled and flashed his eyes once, knowing that nobody was around and they were facing away from the street anyway.

“Wanna go home?” Derek asked him, then froze. _Home?_ Sometimes he forgot that Stiles didn’t actually live with them, since he was there so often. Was that weird to call it home? Did Stiles not see it that way? “I mean...like, the pack house.”

“The pack house is my home, too, Der--stop freaking out.” Stiles rolled his eyes. “But yeah, let’s go.”

Derek relaxed a bit and nodded. “Do you wanna change?”

“Nah--if you’re walking home wet, I will, too.”

* * *

By the time they got to the pack house, their clothes had dried a bit. Not completely, but enough to stop actively dripping, at least. They kicked their soaked shoes off and left them on the porch as they walked into the house.

“Hey, Stiles,” Cora said before they had even made it into view.

“You boys are wet,” Uncle Peter noticed from the kitchen table as soon as he saw them. He put his newspaper down and took a sip of his coffee as he took in their appearance.

“We washed my mom’s jeep,” Stiles explained.

“That was very nice of you,” Uncle Peter said, watching Stiles apprehensively as the boy crept towards him with an impish smile on his face. “You should get changed.”

“But I haven’t even hugged you yet.”

“Stiles,” He warned, his body tensing slightly in preparation to bolt. “Stiles, _no_.”

“Stiles, _yes_ ,” Stiles corrected, before lunging towards him.

He nearly fell onto the floor in his desperate scramble off of his chair to escape. Stiles chased the full grown werewolf around the table twice, before Uncle Peter’s eyes zeroed in on the entryway. He made a dash for it, but Derek instinctively sidestepped to catch him in a tight embrace and prevent him from leaving.

The man froze for a moment, surprise emanating into the air around them at Derek’s very physical action. The sharp smell made his wolf uncomfortable and he nearly let go, but then Stiles had slammed into Uncle Peter’s back, sufficiently sandwiching him between the two very wet bodies.

“This is uncle abuse!” He complained, but his scent had turned much sweeter and happier and Derek felt content to stay in this odd group hug situation with the two of them.

“Gotcha!” Stiles laughed maniacally.

“Christopher! Help me!”

Seconds later, Uncle Chris was downstairs and chuckling at the scene.

“I’m being attacked, and you’re _laughing_?” 

“I assume you probably deserved it.”

Uncle Peter sputtered for a moment, looking rather betrayed. “I will remember this moment.”

Derek and Stiles let him go, mischievous grins mirrored on their faces as Uncle Peter looked down at his damp clothes with his nose wrinkled.

“I can’t believe I was assaulted in my own home by two of my most trusted packmates,” He said, shaking his head as the corner of his mouth twitched upwards.

“With _love_ ,” Stiles reasoned.

“With _hose_ water. Like barbarians.”

“You can smell that it’s hose water?” Uncle Chris asked him.

“Yes, only hose water smells this _stale_.”

“At least it wasn’t chlorine.” Derek shrugged. 

“Stiles!” Cora shouted from the living room. “Get changed and watch Transformers with me.”

“I’m being called,” Stiles sighed blithely. He walked past Uncle Chris on the way towards the stairs and ran his hand up his forearm in lieu of greeting.

Derek wondered if Stiles had these mannerisms around other humans? He never even needed to think about acting like a wolf--it seemed second nature to him. The humans at school must have thought Stiles was very odd.

Once Stiles was gone, Derek pulled his shirt off and threw it into the laundry room. He wanted to get out of his clothes. They felt way too heavy and constricting.

But first, he was starving.

He went to the refrigerator and grabbed a white Gatorade and an apple.

“I was thinking about heading to the diner in about an hour. Thoughts?” Uncle Chris proposed as he entered the kitchen further to get a cup from the cabinet. 

Derek’s eyes caught the black triskelion on his inner wrist and instead of answering his question, asked his own. “When can I get a tattoo?”

His uncles both smiled and shook their heads.

“I wouldn’t be overly excited about it--it’s not a fun process,” Uncle Peter told him. “Wolves have to get tattoos burned into their skin for them to stay. It’s excruciating. Fire is not as lovely as it looks.”

Derek rolled his eyes, because he knew that. But, pain for a few minutes for a lifetime with a tattoo? Totally worth it.

“Graduate first, and then we’ll talk,” Uncle Chris said.

“Why?”

It wasn’t like Derek would regret it or something stupid--he just wanted the pack symbol.

“Because it isn’t fun for _me,_ either. I almost threw up when I had to hold the blowtorch to Peter’s ankle, and I’m really not in a rush to do it again to my nephew. Everything about it is horrible and it makes me feel like I’m torturing you--which I basically am.”

“It’s not torture, if I want it.”

“Until you are an adult and can actually give me consent to burn something into your skin, I’m not doing it,” Uncle Chris said, an air of finality in his voice.

“Laura has hers.”

“I didn’t do Laura’s--your mother did. You are more than welcome to ask her to do it for you.”

Derek sighed, knowing that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with this. “I’ll wait, I guess.”

“Where do you want it?” Uncle Peter wondered as he grabbed his coffee from the table again.

Derek turned to the side and reached his hand over his shoulder to tap between his shoulder blades. Hence, the reason he needed Uncle Chris to do the tattoo. His wolf definitely wouldn't sit through Talia at his back like that without taking over--even if Stiles was there.

“That’ll look good.”

They stood around the kitchen in silence for a few moments, until Uncle Chris peered through the entryway to the living room, where Stiles and Cora were curled up with each other on the couch. “He seems to be doing alright, huh? All things considered.”

“Yeah...he was kinda sad earlier,” Derek mumbled.

“It also might not have sunk in all the way quite yet, since Claudia isn’t too bad at the moment,” Uncle Peter reasoned.

“Did you tell the pups?” Derek asked.

“We told them that Claudia was sick and to not talk about it unless Stiles brings it up,” Uncle Chris said.

Derek nodded and continued watching his sister and Stiles on the couch. He was aware that the two men were still talking, but it seemed distant as he focused on the pups. Actually, not _his_ focus, but his wolf’s. 

Cora had her arm around Stiles while he was laying against her and she was rubbing his back, scenting him with her fingers and with her cheek as she nuzzled the top of his head.

 _Another wolf. Scenting him!_ **_Mine_ ** _._

A growl rumbled deep in his chest, startling him out of his almost dazed state where his wolf had come _way_ too close without him noticing. He looked away from the living room and at the microwave door, which reflected his golden eyes back at him.

Shit. What the _hell_ was that?

“Derek,” Uncle Peter said concernedly, and Derek shut his eyes, willing his wolf to _back up_.

“I’m fine,” Derek said, his voice gravelly and not quite human.

“Are you sure?”

Derek nodded and took a deep breath.

He heard the soft, quick steps of Stiles come into the kitchen and the smell of cinnamon and _spearmint_ wafted in with him. 

_Wrong. Smells like Cora!_

“You alright, Der?” Stiles questioned, putting his hand on his arm. Derek's wolf immediately calmed under the touch and although it was still agitated, it was no longer trying to take control. 

He opened his eyes, which were now back to green, and said, “Yeah, just...my wolf got...weird.” _And possessive of you against my sister, which makes no sense._

“You’re wolf gets weird a lot.” Stiles smiled reassuringly. “You’re good now, though?”

Derek nodded again. “Just maybe...don’t come in my room until after the diner. Your scent is...wrong.”

“I won’t bring Cora's stink in your room--don’t worry," He laughed. They'd had this conversation several times, since the girls were always scenting him. Stiles very rarely came into his room if he knew he'd just been scented.

“I don’t stink, Stiles!” Cora argued as she came into the kitchen.

Derek’s wolf tried to inch closer again at her presence, but Stiles tightened his grip on his arm and it backed down.

_Wait._

“How did you…?” Derek asked, looking at Stiles as if he had grown an extra head. How did he know that his wolf was riled by Cora? Sure, they were talking about him not liking her scent in his room--but he _never_ wanted that. It didn't mean he was mad at her. Could Stiles somehow tell that his wolf was surfacing? What the hell was going on? Maybe it was just a coincidence that he squeezed his arm?

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Stiles questioned. “You’re really stiff.”

“I think I just...shower.” Derek pointed towards the stairs and then slipped out of Stiles’ hold as he hurriedly left the room.

* * *

There was a large booth in the corner of the diner with wrap around seating that was practically reserved for the Hales. Not many other families in Beacon Hills had such a large family, so they usually opted for the smaller booths. Stiles honestly wasn’t sure why there even  _ was  _ one large booth at all. 

A teenage boy, who was definitely not the waitress who had taken their order, came over and placed their food and drinks down on the table. He had sandy curls that fell down into his bright blue eyes, but Stiles was more focused on the dark bags underneath them. Upon looking closer as he leaned down to set the items across the table, Stiles thought he might have seen very faint bruising on his neck that was mostly hidden by the collar of his uniform. Or maybe it was a shadow, but he wasn't too sure.

“Hi, my name is Camden--I’ll be taking over for Lexi,” He told them cheerfully. He scanned the Hales for a moment, until his eyes fell on Derek at the end of the wrapped bench and his polite smile turned more friendly. “Oh, hey, Derek.”

Derek waved and gave a small grin in return.

“You guys know each other?” Stiles asked. Had Derek Grumpywolf Hale made a friend at school?

“We have English and History together,” Camden answered. “Is this your family?”

“Uh, yeah,” Derek said awkwardly. “Those are my uncles, cousins, sister, and…” He listed off, pointing to each of them in turn until he got to Stiles. He looked as if he was trying to figure out what to say, so Stiles introduced himself.

“I’m his Stiles. I basically follow him around and bother him because my dad is best friends with his uncles and forced our families together since we were born.”

He probably could have said he was a family friend or something, but he wasn’t  _ wrong _ .

“Well, it’s nice to meet you guys.” Camden laughed. “It’s super cool that you have a big family.”

Derek shrugged, and Stiles nudged him with his elbow and squinted at him.

“Yeah, it’s cool, I guess.”

“Well, I’ve gotta get back to it--but it was really awesome getting to talk to you,” Camden said amiably, before walking off to another table.

“Look at you socializing, Der-Bear,” Stiles congratulated him as he grabbed a few curly fries from the side of his plate and stuffed them into his mouth. “So goo--’M so proud o’ you.”

Derek flicked the side of his head and Stiles elbowed him again.

Derek stirred his chocolate milkshake with his straw and Stiles watched him with a slight frown on his face. He was worried about his wolf. It wasn’t that often anymore that Derek struggled with his control. Not to the point where it would freak him out like it did in the kitchen, anyway. Whatever had happened to make him shift had really affected him.

“So, Summer’s just around the corner. Are you guys excited?” Peter asked them.

“Totally--only one more year of homeschool and then I can be around people who aren’t pack,” Cora said. “You guys exhaust me.”

“Okay, rude,” Allison grumbled, shooting her cousin a glare.

“Derek is going to  _ high school  _ soon.” Stiles pointed out. “ _ That’s  _ cool.”

Derek shrugged. “I guess.”

“He’s gonna try out for the baseball team, huh, Der?” Cora prompted.

“Really?” Chris asked, his eyebrows raised. “That’s exciting.”

“Maybe--I don’t know.”

“He’s even working out.” Stiles smirked up at Derek, who looked scandalized at the reveal. To make it worse, he felt his bicep --which, holy cow; he really  _ had  _ been working out more than just that time Stiles had caught him...his arms were  _ hard _ \-- and said, “Look at this muscle wolf over here.”

“I will kill you,” Derek threatened, pulling his arm away from Stiles. The boy snickered as he noticed that Derek’s cheeks had taken on a pink tone.

“Well,  _ I’m  _ partial to basketball myself, but we haven’t had a baseball player in the family yet,” Peter noted.

“I think lacrosse looks cool,” Jackson added. “I wanna play when I’m in high school.”

“I think I would definitely die in any sport I tried to play...but I’m going to play something, anyway,” Stiles told the table, earning laughter from a few of the Hales and an agreeing nod from Jackson. Well, he couldn't play lacrosse...Jackson would be the one to kill him, for sure.

Stiles was about halfway through his strawberry milkshake, when his eyes wandered over to Derek’s. He liked chocolate. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring at it, but he flinched slightly in surprise when it was pushed closer to him. He looked up at Derek, who had an eyebrow raised at him in a  _ ‘take it; I know you want it _ ’ way, and Stiles didn’t need any more encouragement. He pushed his own towards the teenager and put the straw in his mouth to eagerly suck in a mouthful.

When he set the milkshake down, he saw that Derek was drinking his greedily. At first, Stiles just wanted to taste the chocolate one...but now he was on board with the idea of just totally switching. If Derek didn’t ask for his back, he wasn’t going to offer.

“We should grab Noah something before we leave--I’m sure he’s hungry,” Chris said after finishing his last bite of sandwich.

“Burger or sandwich?” Peter asked. “I think he had a sandwich yesterday, actually. He sent a picture of it, remember?”

“Wait--my dad sends you food pictures?” Stiles snorted.

“It looked really good--I would’ve sent it to him, too, if I was the one lucky enough to have it.” Peter shrugged.

“Okay, so burger. Maybe a milkshake, too,” Chris debated. “Strawberry or Vanilla?”

“Strawberry--never ask me that question again. Actually, I'm totally telling him that you tried to get him _vanilla_ like a psychopath."

Chris laughed and shook his head. “Okay, I’m going to go pay at the front.”

“I’ll come with.” Peter slid out to follow. He looked at the kids and said, “Meet us outside. Derek’s in charge.”

“Duh, Papa.” Jackson rolled his eyes. “Derek’s the oldest.”

“Don’t ‘duh’ me, child of mine,” Peter told him.

“Yeah, he brought you into this world and he can take you out of it,” Malia threatened her twin.

“Plus, he’s a Left Hand--so he’s  _ trained  _ to do it,” Cora added.

“Voices down,” Derek reminded them. 

Yeah, humans didn’t have 'Left Hands’ in their families, because they were  _ boring _ . Stiles was so glad that he was part of a pack.

Peter and Chris left to go pay while Derek and the pups finished their meals. It was only a few minutes, before they were all sliding out of the booth and making their way towards the front.

“Finally find some friends, Stilinski?” An obnoxious boy sneered from beside them. Stiles turned to look at Brian O’Malley and his brother Justin as they walked up to them.

“How much did you have to pay them to spend time with you?” Justin asked.

“Unlike you, people don’t be my friend just for my money,” Stiles said.

Brian's eyebrows pulled together angrily. “What’s  _ that  _ supposed to mean?”

“It means people  _ want  _ to be my friend and they  _ pretend  _ to be yours.”

“Shut up, Stilinski,” Justin growled, stepping towards Stiles.

“I’m not so good at that, O’Malley,” Stiles challenged, closing the gap between them.

Justin pushed Stiles backwards and Stiles was about to lunge at him, but Malia had already gone up to them before he could.

“You should keep your hands to yourself, unless you wanna lose them,” Malia growled.

Justin looked down at Malia distastefully and said, “You should tell your girlfriend to back off.”

“I’m not his girlfriend.”

“Fine, then _I’ll_ tell you:  _ back off _ .” Justin shoved Malia back and Stiles quickly hugged her from behind and held her tightly so she wouldn’t do something seriously problematic, like  _ shift _ .

It didn’t end up being an issue, though, because Malia wouldn’t have even had time to think about attacking them. Jackson surged forward and punched Justin directly in the face, causing the boy to stumble backwards, clutching his nose.

Derek grabbed the back of Jackson’s neck and pulled him back with a, “Jesus;  _ seriously _ ?”

“What’s your  _ damage _ , dude?” Brian asked Jackson, then looked at his brother worriedly.

“I think you broke my nose!” Justin cried.

“If you touch my sister again, I’ll rip it off your face,” Jackson promised as Derek dragged him outside.

Stiles and the Hales all hurried out of the diner and Peter was looking at them in shock. 

“Please tell me I didn’t hear that you broke a kid’s nose.”

“They were being di-- _ mean _ to Stiles, and Malia stepped in,” Derek explained.

“Then they pushed her and I punched them.” Jackson shrugged remorselessly. 

“You shouldn’t punch people, Jackson, you should have just--” Chris tried, but Jackson cut him off.

“ _ No _ . They  _ shoved  _ Malia, Papa.  _ And  _ Stiles! It’s their own fault that they made that stupid decision and I’m not just gonna let people do that to my pack,” Jackson said lividly. “Plus, Malia couldn’t have done it, because she would’ve broken his entire face if she punched him. So, I did it. And I’d do it again.”

Stiles couldn’t say he disagreed with the logic--he wanted to fight them, too. And h e could tell from the way Derek was agitatedly strumming his fingers on his thigh that he would've done the exact same thing, had the kids been older.

Peter and Chris shared a loaded look with each other and Peter shrugged, clearly in agreement with his son. 

Chris sighed and shook his head. “We’ll talk about this more at home.”

“Am I in trouble?” Jackson asked.

“No...but we’re going to have a talk about alternative ways to defend your family that don’t include breaking things.”

“Breaking  _ people _ ,” Peter clarified, sending a wink at Jackson. He held the bag of food up and said, “I’m going to run by and drop this off to Noah. I’ll meet you all at the house.”

“Sounds good.” Chris nodded as he led everyone else towards the SUV.  


Stiles was glad that Derek had dragged him out of his bed that morning...it turned out to be a pretty okay day.


	9. Chapter 9

Stiles and Scott were walking home together, which was an odd experience for Stiles, since he always either got picked up by his dad or one of his godfathers. The reason for this, was that Scott McCall rode his bike to and from school, because he was one of those gifted humans that had a good sense of direction and were actually capable of remembering the route home. Stiles was not one of those humans, so it was good that Scott was with him. 

Today was different because Mrs. McCall, Scott’s mom, was working until five o’clock and she didn’t want him to be home alone. So, Stiles’ dad volunteered to have him hang out with Stiles at his house. Scott had been at the Stilinski house several times, so it wasn’t _too_ exciting, but it was definitely better than reading the book Stiles’ dad was trying to make him read. It was apparently “recommended” for his age and was supposed to be “educational”, which was stupid. Why read that, when there were so many _amazing_ books to read? Like _Magic Treehouse_ or _Harry Potter_.

“You wanna watch a movie or something in my room?” Stiles asked when they reached the house.

“Sure.” Scott shrugged.

“Cool. I’m just gonna get some snacks--you can go up and wait for me. Oh, and can you take my backpack?”

Stiles handed him the bag and Scott slung it over his other shoulder, before running up the stairs. Stiles grabbed two water bottles and the container of grapes from the fridge, washed a bowl of them, then shoved a couple handfuls of granola bars into his pockets.

Snack run: complete.

He began making his way up the stairs, but found Scott sitting on the top step, looking extremely red.

“Uh...you good, dude?”

“That’s your room, right?” Scott pointed to a closed door and Stiles nodded. “There are like... _girls_ in there.”

“What?” Stiles asked, confused. “ _Girls_?”

“Yeah, dude. Like, _three_ of them.”

Stiles wracked his brain for a moment on why the heck there would be girls in his room, but came to the realization fairly quickly that he did happen to know three girls with full access to his house.

“It’s the Hales,” Stiles told him, knowing that there was really no other possibility. He walked into the room and sure enough, Cora was spinning around in his computer chair while staring at the ceiling, and Allison and Malia were in his bed, playing video games.

“Your friend is weird,” Cora told him as she let the chair slow to a stop. “Came in, then ran out like a tomato.”

“Yeah, I think he’s scared of girls,” Malia giggled.

“I’m not…” Scott tried to deny, but then Allison looked over at him with a raised eyebrow and a knowing smirk and he quickly nodded. “I am. I am definitely scared of girls.”

“At least you’re honest, my guy,” Cora praised. “And smart--girls can be terrifying.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “These aren’t like... _girls_. They’re my pa--my parents’ friends’ kids. Family, basically.”

Cora scoffed at him and shook her head, clearly unimpressed by his save. In his defense, he wasn’t used to his human life and pack life unexpectedly merging like this.

“I’m Cora, that’s Allison, and the one who doesn’t know how to brush her hair is Malia,” Cora introduced. Malia threw one of Stiles’ pillows at Cora, but she caught it easily. She furrowed her eyebrows and sniffed, then looked at Stiles curiously. “Is this Derek’s?”

Stiles squawked and grabbed the pillow from her, hugging it to his chest. “ _Anyway_ , this is Scott. He’s my friend from school and he has asthma--so don’t scare him too much.”

“We literally just existed.” Cora snorted.

“I’m gonna get a squirt bottle and whenever Cora is a brat, just spray her,” Stiles told Scott.

“You could try that.” Cora smirked. “You would lose a few important parts of your body, but you could do it.”

The girls laughed and Stiles shook his head. “Sorry--they’re barely housetrained. Their parents tried to teach them manners, but they didn’t stick.”

Malia set her controller down and looked over at Scott, who was still standing very rigidly in the doorway. After a couple of seconds, she held her hand out. “Stop being so scared--it’s distracting.”

Scott mumbled an apology and hesitantly took her hand, then yelped as she pulled him onto the bed and made him sit beside her, propped against the pillows. His blush was back full-force and he looked about ready to bolt, but Malia put her arm around him and leaned against his shoulder.

Stiles smiled at Scott as he relaxed a bit. Well, that was one way to get him more comfortable. Good job, Malia.

“So, what movie are we watching?” Cora asked, joining everyone on the bed. Allison squeezed her way between Malia and the wall and Cora laid between their legs with her head propped against Allison’s stomach.

“Madagascar,” Stiles said as he put the disc in.

“Ooh, I love that movie.” Malia grinned excitedly.

“Me, too,” Scott agreed.

Stiles put Derek’s pillow against the headboard between Scott and the edge of the bed, and leaned against it. Speaking of his grumpy wolf, “How did you guys even get here without Derek?”

“He walked us over and then had to go do something with Uncle Peter,” Cora answered.

“Is he coming later?”

“Doesn’t he always?” Allison reasoned.

* * *

By the time Derek had walked all the way to the Stilinski house, he was ready to just collapse on the front lawn. Getting onto the roof to reach Stiles’ window seemed like _so_ much effort for his sore muscles...but going through the front door and walking up all the _stairs_ seemed horrible, too.

Training with Uncle Peter was always fun, but _always_ painful. If anyone in the pack could fight, it was Uncle Peter --and sometimes he actually _encouraged_ Derek to let his wolf out, which was exhilarating. He knew he was learning a lot, since he could tell that he was becoming a better fighter every session, but he had yet to go a single round with him where his ass wasn’t handed to him on a silver platter. Grass was not as soft as it looked, when being thrown down on the ground by a werewolf.

At least the soreness would be gone within a few hours.

He looked up at the edge of the Stilinski roof for a while, mentally preparing himself for the way his arm muscles would hate pulling him up, before he just forced himself to. It was less graceful than usual and his arms shook pathetically as he grunted and shimmied his way onto the roof. When he was finally up, he rolled onto his back and threw his arms out to the sides. Fuck everything. Why couldn’t Stiles’ room be on the first floor?

“That you, Der?” Stiles called, his voice flitting through the open window.

Derek groaned dramatically and couldn’t help but smile when he heard Stiles laugh. He got to his feet and walked up to the window, then paused, not recognizing the boy who was currently snuggled against his cousin. What the hell? Who had Malia kidnapped?

“Get in here, creeper wolf--we’re watching Madagascar.” Stiles beckoned him over. Derek crawled through the window and Stiles shifted over towards the other boy to give Derek some room to lay at the edge of the bed. He moved the pillow that was behind his head --which Derek recognized as his own and was very grateful that Stiles hadn't let anyone else lay on it-- a little so that he could share it with the teenager. Derek sat on the bed and was immediately manhandled by Stiles into laying with him.

He wasn’t overly excited about squeezing into what was obviously a puppy pile on a twin sized bed with some human, but Stiles had already twisted his sweater strings around his fingers, holding him there like a leash. At least his exit wasn’t trapped and he was only having to touch Stiles. 

Derek tapped Stiles’ wrist and looked over at Scott.

“Oh, sorry!” Stiles gasped, realizing that they didn’t know each other. Cora reached over and smacked Stiles’ leg, so he continued at a whisper, “This is Scott--he’s my friend from school.”

Hearing his name, Scott looked over at Derek and gave him a bright, crooked smile. “Hi.”

“Scott, this is Derek--I’ve told you about him, you remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Scott nodded. “He’s your best friend.”

“Yeah,” Stiles confirmed, leaning his head on Derek’s shoulder.

“If you guys don’t shut up, I swear to the Gods that I will throw you out the window,” Cora hissed, shooting Stiles and Scott a glare. “Don’t even test me.”

The room fell silent after that.

* * *

The first thing Noah noticed when he got home was that it was quiet. He was pretty sure Scott was supposed to be there, so there really shouldn’t have been silence.

He briskly walked upstairs to check on his son and found not only Stiles and Scott, but an entire mound of six kids squished into the twin bed. Walking in on puppy piles wasn’t abnormal for Noah, so he wasn’t overly surprised at it. He did, however, note that Stiles would definitely need a bigger bed soon, since the pups were all growing. And apparently, by the way Malia and Scott were curled up together, new additions were being added.

Derek smiled at Noah in greeting and Noah returned it, before suggesting, “Pizza?”

The kids were completely engrossed in the television, but they incoherently mumbled things that Noah was pretty sure were agreements, so he nodded and left them to it.

Noah went down the hall to his bedroom and found Claudia painting her toenails on their bed. 

“Hi, honey,” She said warmly, flashing him a quick smile before refocusing on her nails.

“Red?” Noah asked. “That color looks good on you.”

“I thought so, too.”

He watched her paint for a moment, grinning affectionately at the way she held the tip of her tongue between her teeth when she concentrated. He used to poke it, just to annoy her, and earned many smacks over the years for it.

“I’m ordering pizza,” He told her. “Probably going to invite some people over.”

“You mean the Hales?” She asked.

“And maybe Melissa McCall.”

“Melissa is a wonderful woman--and a much better influence!” Claudia said, raising her eyebrow at him. “You, Chris, and Peter are always up to trouble.”

“I can’t argue that,” Noah chuckled. “I should ask her to trade kids--Scott’s made of sunshine. Stiles is too much like me.”

“Some would say that’s called karma.”

Noah nodded. “See you downstairs?”

“Yeah, of course,” Claudia assured him. “I have to talk Melissa into bringing Scott to spend the holidays with us next month--it’s just them, you know. She deserves more family for Christmas.”

Noah sighed and looked down at the floor. “Yeah, _Christmas_.”

“We don’t have to.”

“No, it’s...it’s a great idea. Christmas is just…” Noah trailed off, not quite how to remind her that Christmas was six months away and definitely not next month. “...for families, and you’re absolutely right. Melissa could use some more family.”

“See you downstairs?”

“Yeah,” Noah said, knowing he probably wouldn’t see his wife for the rest of the night. “I love you.”

“Love you always.” She smiled, then blew him a kiss with her newly painted nails.

Noah left the room and found Melissa’s phone contact as he walked down the stairs.

_“Hello?”_

“Hey, Melissa,” He greeted. “I was just wondering if I could steal Scott for dinner tonight? I was going to order pizza and maybe invite a couple of my friends over, since they’re kids are already here hanging out with Stiles and Scott. You could come, too, if you want. Are you hungry?”

_“I’m...yeah, I mean, I’m starving. Are you sure, though? I don’t want to intrude or anything.”_

“No intrusion,” He assured her. He opened his alcohol cabinet and grabbed two bottles of red wine, one red aconite-laced wine, and a whiskey bottle. “I have food, alcohol, and some games.”

_“That sounds...awesome, actually. Yeah, I’ll come over after my shift.”_

“Great. See you then.”

Noah hung up the call and pressed _‘Peter’,_ before holding the phone between his shoulder and ear as he poured some of the whiskey into a glass.

_“Have my kids broken your house yet?”_

“Not that I know of,” Noah said.

_“Good--I’ve taught them well.”_

Noah rolled his eyes, despite knowing Peter couldn’t see him. He hoped he could somehow feel it. “Come over for dinner.”

 _“Are you asking me out, Deputy?”_ Peter purred. _“If so, I think you can do much better than that.”_

“Well, there will be lots of pizza...maybe even a Hawaiian, if you’re lucky...garlic bread,” Noah listed off, before quickly downing the amber liquid and continuing, “I was thinking caesar salad.”

 _“Mmm,”_ Peter hummed. _“You’ve piqued my interest. Go on.”_

“Wine...chess...I just got some new playing cards for poker.”

_“Perfect! Christopher and I will be over soon.”_

“That _would_ get your gambling wolf ass over here.”

_“You should’ve led with it, Sweetheart. How long have you known me?”_

“Too long.”

_“You wound me.”_

* * *

Peter and Christopher walked up to the Stilinski residence and let themselves in with their house key. When they made it to the kitchen, Peter found who the new smell belonged to: an amiable woman about their age with dark curls and warm brown eyes, who was laughing and talking with Noah at the table. She was clad in hospital scrubs, so Peter made the assumption that she was a nurse.

“Oh, hey.” Noah noticed them. “Melissa, this is Peter and Chris Hale, who I mentioned were coming.”

“I just have to say, you’re gorgeous,” Peter complimented her with a charming smile. “I mean seriously--what’s your skin routine?”

“Down, puppy,” Christopher teased, pushing Peter aside to hold his hand out to Melissa. _Puppy?_ Asshole. “Sorry about him--we don’t let him leave the house often.”

“So, you’re his keeper?” She asked, her eyes shining amusedly.

“Yeah, I was tricked. The job description said ‘husband’, but there was a fine print.”

“Easy to miss with rose-colored glasses.”

“Exactly.”

Peter looked between the two of them and put his hand over his heart. “I--I can’t even--Christopher, I want a divorce.”

“Denied.” Christopher waved him off.

“Maybe if you didn’t flirt with everything that moved, he wouldn’t have to keep a collar on you,” Noah said innocently.

If they kept up with the dog jokes, he was seriously considering biting someone.

“Are you jealous?” Peter winked at his best friend.

“Totally green with it.”

As Christopher sat at the table beside Noah, Peter made his way over to the fridge to find the wine. He grabbed one regular bottle and one of the ones with the aconite sticker on the neck, then poured everyone generous glasses.

“So,” Melissa said, taking one of the glasses from him. “You guys have kids?”

“A teenager and four about Stiles’ age,” Christopher answered. “We have a very lively household.”

“Gosh, I can’t imagine.” She shook her head. “I feel like I have my hands full with Scott sometimes and he’s a total angel.”

“Same,” Noah agreed.

Peter scoffed. “Noah, your child is a mischievous little imp.”

“He has the nickname for a reason,” Noah said.

“Do you know what Stiles did to me the other day, Melissa?” Peter asked, getting the woman’s attention. “He and Derek--the teenager Christopher mentioned--decided to get completely soaked with hose water and _ambush_ me in my own kitchen.”

“They hugged him to get him wet, too,” Christopher elaborated.

“I was attacked and that asshole over there-” Peter pointed at his husband. “ - _laughed_ at me.”

Melissa chuckled and said, “So, you guys are close with Stiles?”

“Very--he’s our godson,” Christopher told her. “We steal him whenever Noah’s at work.”

“He’s practically a Hale,” Peter added.

There was a firm _knock knock knock_ on the front door and Christopher got up from his seat to answer it. Within seconds, a horde of children stampeded down the stairs. 

“Pi-zza, pi-zza, pi-zza,” Stiles, Scott, and Malia chanted, while Allison and Cora were shifting excitedly, watching as Christopher brought the boxes in and sat them on the table. Derek discreetly sneaked around the table, away from all the chaos.

Noah took two boxes off the top of the large stack and Stiles and Malia surged forward to take them. “Get outta here.”

“Foooood!” Stiles yelled as he and his godsister sprinted up the stairs, leading the horde away.

“How are you holding up with all of that?” Christopher asked Derek, who was grabbing water bottles from the fridge.

Derek rolled his eyes and shrugged, before slinking out of the kitchen and back upstairs.

“Your oldest?” Melissa guessed.

“Yeah, that’s Derek. He’s not much of a talker, but he’s a good kid,” Peter said.

“He just...hangs out with the little kids?”

“He and Stiles are basically inseparable. Always have been,” Noah explained. “He manages to make sure Stiles doesn’t do anything _too_ stupid, and he’s helping out a lot with the whole...y’know...Claudia.” 

Melissa smiled sympathetically and put her hand on Noah’s forearm. “I’m glad Stiles has someone he lets help him. Support systems are so important and it seems like you both have a great one.”

“Yeah, we’re very lucky,” Noah agreed, looking at Peter and Christopher appreciatively. 

“I take full credit,” Peter spoke up. If he had never lost control and nearly mauled Noah in the locker room at the start of their Junior year, they never would have become best friends. “I refused to give him an option regarding joining my family or not. I pulled him in and didn’t let go.”

“I’m pretty sure I had a hand in it, too. I mean, _I’m_ the one that gave Claudia the shovel talk,” Christopher argued, causing the room to erupt into laughter.

“Okay.” Peter held his hand up, pulling himself away from his memories and back to the situation at hand. “If someone doesn’t pass me a box of food, I’m going to go feral.”

Christopher kicked him under the table and Noah pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. 

“Wouldn’t want that.” Melissa handed him a pizza box without thinking too hard on the comment.

“No, we would not," Noah said, then bit the inside of his lip to hold back a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theory: if they give feral alpha peter a box of pizza...will it prevent all of season 1? 
> 
> *also, I'm not sure how popular the saying Noah mentioned is in other parts of the world, but saying "green with envy/jealousy" is basically saying they are SUPER jealous and wish they were the other person. So, Noah is sarcastically insinuating that he wishes he was the one Peter was flirting with instead of Melissa. It might've been obvious with context, but I wanted to just clear it up in case it was confusing :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not overly proud of this chapter, but it's just a filler.
> 
> (please read the end notes of this chapter! thanks)

When Stiles was still sitting in front of the school waiting to be picked up, by the time Mrs. McCall came to get Scott - which was nearly a half an hour after school was let out - he figured he should ask for a ride home. He knew it was his dad’s day to pick him up, but it was likely that he was held later at work or maybe fell asleep on the couch while watching television. He knew his dad worked hard and Stiles liked riding home with the McCalls, so it wasn’t a big deal.

“I’m so happy I don’t have to go back to school for a while,” Scott said, a bright smile on his tanned face. “We’re gonna hang out a bunch this Summer, right?”

“Of course! You’ll have to share me with the Hales, though...but when I’m at my Dad’s house, definitely!” Stiles assured him, giving his arm a squeeze.

“Maybe the girls can hang out with us again? They were cool. Well, Cora was kinda scary - but Allison and Malia were cool.”

“You should tell Cora that you think that - she would love it. That would be the best complement to her.”

They made it to the Stilinski house quicker than Stiles expected and he was almost surprised when he looked out the window to see they were there already.

“Is anyone home, Stiles? Did you want to come over to our house?” Mrs. McCall offered.

“I think my parents are home.” Stiles shrugged as he opened the car door. His dad's car was in the driveway, so maybe he just forgot? “If not, I can just walk to your house. It’s only like one street over.”

“Okay - we’ll keep an ear out for the door, just in case.”

“Thanks, Mrs. McCall!” Stiles chirped, before shutting the door and running towards the house. 

He let himself in with the house key he kept in his backpack and wandered into the living room, where he quickly found his dad passed out across the couch on his stomach, one of his arms hanging off the cushion and holding loosely onto the neck of a whiskey bottle.

Well, that made sense why Stiles wasn’t picked up. 

He walked over to his father and crouched down so he could see his face easier. He was flushed, like he was overheated or had been crying, but there was no evidence of tears. Stiles knew that sometimes alcohol made you tired --at least, he remembered his mom saying something to that effect at one point when she had a few glasses of wine. He knew he must have been tired with how much he worked, so at least he was getting some sleep in.

He decided against waking him up and went to look for his mom, figuring he might as well check on her, too. His parents’ bedroom door was left slightly ajar, so he tentatively pushed it open and peered in. 

The room was completely torn up. Instead of the sky blue sheets that usually covered their mattress, there was a large pile of shoes. Pieces of dark mud from a pair of his father’s boots was sprinkled across the white fabric. Where had the shoe bin gone?

“What are you doing, Mom?” Stiles asked, watching as she rummaged through a box of miscellaneous things on the floor.

“Just some organizing,” She sighed airily. “There’s too much clutter in this room. It’s suffocating.”

Stiles was pretty sure that the room looked much better before the ‘organizing’. The more he looked around, the more he noticed was misplaced. Most of the clothes from the closet were in various states of folding on the desk in the corner, the picture frames that had littered the dresser were in a stack by the bathroom, and her jewelry box was opened with several sets of earrings placed in small piles in front of it, as if she were sorting and then walked away. 

“The shoes shouldn’t be on the bed,” Stiles said, looking at the dirty mattress with his nose wrinkled. “Where’s the bin?”

“I threw it away - I didn’t like how it looked. I’ll have to get a new one.”

“So...what are you gonna do with the shoes until then?”

She blew air out her nose forcefully and fixed Stiles with a slightly peeved look. “I don’t know...I’ll figure it out.”

“It’s getting super gross - shouldn’t you get the new bin before trying to reorganize?”

“Stiles, please just _stop_ ,” She said. “I know what I’m trying to do and you’re messing it up in my head, okay? It’s a work in progress and I don’t need you waltzing in and judging me. Just...just go start dinner for me, okay?”

Stiles was quiet for a moment, unsure of how to respond. She had never allowed shoes on the bed, but _this_ was just fine? She was okay with mud - and whatever else his dad stepped in - getting on the bare mattress like this?

“What am I supposed to make?” He asked.

“Just fill a pot with water and turn the dial on high. You’re plenty old enough to make spaghetti.”

“Okay.”

* * *

Peter was seated at the kitchen table, with Malia standing between his legs as he tried to get a splinter out of the back of her shoulder. He would never understand why she and Jackson would always end up fighting in the Preserve, when they had a perfectly good lawn - void of wood.

Malia snarled loudly when Peter made a painful attempt to grab the splinter, and sunk her nails into his legs just above his knees. He tensed and growled in pain, his eyes shining electric blue.

Derek snickered at them from across the table, where he had been watching in blatant amusement. Such a brat.

“That looks fun,” Christopher noted as he walked into the kitchen and looked down at their daughter’s claws in Peter’s thighs.

“The most,” Peter grumbled.

Derek reached his hand across the table, palm up, and Malia looked over at it. She let go of Peter’s leg and set her hand in his, then visibly relaxed and shifted back to human as her cousin took her pain.

“Thanks, Der,” She sighed contentedly.

The house phone on the counter began ringing loudly and Christopher answered it with, “Hale residence, Chris speaking.”

Holy shit - that man’s ‘right hand voice’ was hot as Hell. It made Peter forget how to breathe. If teenaged Peter had met adult Christopher, there would have been so many boss and teacher roleplays. What a shame.

 _“It’s me,”_ Stiles’ voice came through the phone. It was rather odd for Stiles to be calling them on days he was with his dad, so Peter looked away from Malia’s shoulder to pay closer attention to the phone call.

“Hey, Kiddo. You alright?” Christopher asked.

_“Yeah, but I was using the stove and like...I think something’s wrong.”_

Derek tensed and sat up straighter, looking towards the entryway as he listened to the call, as if he were ready to bolt depending on what Stiles said.

“Why are you using the stove? Where’s Noah?”

_“He’s sleeping, and I’m trying to make spaghetti. The water isn’t boiling though and the stove is, like...clicking? And it’s making the kitchen smell really weird.”_

“Stiles, listen - you need to turn off the stove right now and open the windows,” Christopher instructed.

_“Why?”_

“That smell is probably gas and you shouldn’t be breathing it in.”

_“Gas?”_

“Are you opening the windows?"

_“Yeah, I am.”_

“If there’s no flame and the stove is clicking, it means it’s releasing gas and not struggling to light on fire."

_“It’s supposed to light on fire?”_

“Yes, that’s how it heats things up.”

_“Your stove doesn’t do that.”_

“Ours is electric - it’s different.”

_“Oh.”_

Peter waved his hand to get Christopher’s attention, then mouthed ‘go get him’ while motioning towards the entryway. Derek seemed to agree with this, as he got up and started heading out.

“Derek and I are going to come pick you up, okay?”

_“You don’t have to- “_

“Open the front door while you’re waiting,” Christopher ignored him, then hung up the phone and set it back in its holster.

“Why is Noah _sleeping_ in the middle of the afternoon, while Stiles is cooking? Who picked him up from school?” Peter asked, his voice bordering on a growl. “If there’s no one actively watching Stiles, he’s supposed to be here.”

“I know,” Christopher said as he left the room.

“Can you get this stupid thing out of me yet?” Malia whined, pulling Peter’s attention back to the splinter.

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart,” He said as he tried again at aiming the tweezers correctly to be able to grab the splinter. He doubled his efforts this time around, hoping to avoid Malia’s claws. Once was enough for the day. Finally, he managed to pull it out, and she immediately sagged in relief as her body healed itself now that the object was removed.

“You okay now?” Jackson asked from the entryway.

“Yeah.” Malia lifted her shoulder up and down a few times as if to test if it was still painful. “Next time, it’s your turn to get a splinter.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “I’ll think about it.”

“Thanks Daddy.” Malia grinned, then hurriedly left the kitchen and pulled Jackson with her towards the front door.

Peter wanted to be surprised that his daughter was going back to the exact activity that gave her the injury in the first place - but he wasn’t, in the slightest. Nasty splinters be damned - Malia Hale wouldn’t be deterred from spending every waking moment in the woods by _anything_.

At least if Jackson did end up getting the next splinter, there would be a lot less claws for Peter to deal with.

* * *

When Derek and his uncle pulled up to the Stilinski house, Stiles was leaning against the front door frame. It slightly calmed Derek’s wolf that Stiles wasn’t breathing in the gas anymore and was away from the kitchen.

Derek got out of the car and jogged up to the younger boy, who was smiling sheepishly at him.

“I know I smell like the gas - sorry,” He mumbled. “I won’t touch you, if you don’t want.”

Stiles _did_ smell like the gas. Derek wasn’t overly happy about the scent overpowering his usual warm sugar and cinnamon smell, but it wasn’t off-putting enough to stop him from reaching down and brushing his fingers through Stiles’ hair and letting his hand linger for a few moments on the side of his neck. Stiles leaned into it and hummed happily, which Derek was pretty sure was a habit mimicking the way wolves rumbled when they were happy. 

Gods, he was an odd human. How was he ever supposed to have a life outside of the pack, when he was worse at being a human than _Derek_? 

“Where’s Noah?” Uncle Chris asked, breaking the boys of their greeting.

Stiles pulled away from Derek to go back into the house, and the teenager’s wolf almost forced a whine out of him - but he luckily managed to catch it at the last second. 

Why did his wolf always act so touch-starved around Stiles? The kid was literally all over him pretty much every day. He had a clingy ass wolf.

The three of them made their way over to the living room couch and found Noah passed out, hand still wrapped around a half-empty whiskey bottle.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Uncle Chris said so lowly that Derek was pretty sure he was talking to himself, since it definitely wasn’t loud enough for Stiles to hear. Louder this time, Uncle Chris told Stiles, “Don’t touch the stove unless there’s a grownup in the kitchen with you, okay?”

“Mom said- “ Stiles tried to reason, but was cut off.

“Even then, okay? This is serious - you scared us. You could have been hurt. If your mom wants food made, she needs to take care of that herself.”

Stiles looked down at the ground and Derek instinctively pulled him into his side as his scent soured. His wolf paced anxiously within him, upset over how sad and regretful Stiles was beginning to smell. It was an accident - there was no reason for him to smell like that.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought I could do it, but I was wrong,” Stiles said.

“Nobody’s mad,” Derek assured him and Stiles looked up at him with uncertain eyes, but his scent had begun returning to it’s usual sweetness.

“Of course not - it’s not your fault, Kiddo.” Uncle Chris put his hand on Stiles’ shoulder comfortingly. “I just want to be clear that we don’t want you to get hurt because we all love you very much.”

“I love you guys, too.” Stiles smiled. “I won’t touch the stove anymore without help.”

“That’s all I ask,” Uncle Chris said, before grinning playfully. “Plus, of course, that you do your school work and keep your bedroom at least a little bit clean, and--”

“Okay, _Dad,_ jeez” Stiles rolled his eyes dramatically, his entire head moving with the action. 

Derek’s nose was getting increasingly irritated by the lingering smell of the gas, so he lightly tugged Stiles’ sleeve to get his attention and nodded towards the front door.

“The gas?” Stiles guessed, scrunching up his nose. 

Derek only then realized that he was copying him, and forced his face to relax. He hadn’t even realized his nose was scrunched - how stupid.

Without waiting for a response, Stiles said, “We should go; the gas is bothering Derek.”

“Okay.” Uncle Chris nodded, heading towards the front of the house. “I’m thinking of either making pork chops or gnocchi for dinner. Or maybe both. If you’re in a cooking mood, you’re welcome to help me.”

“I think I’m all done cooking today,” Stiles sighed. “I’ll just read with Derek until it’s ready and then I can help set the table or something.”

“That works.”

It wasn’t until Uncle Chris was locking up the house with his copy of the house key, that Stiles asked, “What about Dad? We just leave him?”

“He’s fine,” Derek told him, using his grip on Stiles’ sleeve to guide him towards the car.

* * *

“I’m concerned,” Christopher said as he walked into the bedroom he shared with Peter and sat at the desk against the wall. “This was...this was _so_ dangerous. We’re lucky the only thing that happened was the gas - he could have lit the whole kitchen on fire. Hell, he could have lit _himself_ on fire. Noah was _drunk_. That’s why he was sleeping - he was passed out on the couch, still clutching the bottle.”

Peter quickly shifted from his sprawled out position on the bed, to a more attentive sitting posture, having been waiting to talk about the situation since Christopher had gone to pick their godson up. 

“He was drunk before three in the afternoon?” Peter asked in alarm. “That’s...how _did_ Stiles even get home from school today?”

“He said Melissa had to give him a ride, since no one showed up,” Christopher ground out through clenched teeth.

Peter wasn’t happy about this, either. Sure, Melissa was a nice woman and all, but they trusted a grand total of three people driving with Stiles in the car - Noah, and themselves. Call them overprotective, but Stiles’ safety was not something they took lightly. Not only since he was pack and their godson, but because of his _role_ in their pack. He had been single-handedly holding the reins to Derek’s wolf since he was practically a toddler, and they owed him everything for managing to keep Derek as their nephew, instead of a feral wolf.

“Christopher, do you think he’s developing...you know...a problem?” Peter asked softly. 

The words felt wrong in his mouth and he almost couldn’t force them out, but they had to be said. He and Christopher had both taken notice of the extra glasses of liquor that Noah would drink in recent hang outs, and Peter had caught faint whiffs of alcohol on him even on days they didn't drink together. He knew he was going through a hard time - completely understandably - so he was refraining from saying anything. It wasn't negatively impacting Noah before this, but now...

 _Alcoholic_ was too loaded of a word to suggest, and one that he never wanted to associate with Noah. But there was potentially a problem.

“I don’t know...but we need to be more present,” Christopher said firmly as he scrubbed his face with his hands. “For _both_ of them. We can’t let Noah do this to himself, or Stiles.”

“I agree.” Peter nodded. “I also think we need to get Stiles a phone, so that he can call us if Noah doesn’t pick him up again or there’s another situation like this. He’s not supposed to be left alone with Claudia, and I’m broadening that to include drunk Noah.”

“I’ll get the phone tomorrow and put him on our plan,” Christopher said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it to summer in this timeline! I'll give us 3 chapters of pure fluffy summer fun, and then we will jump right into Derek's first day of high school and start up that Paige portion of our teenage wolf's life.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so fun to write, but I did accidentally get a little carried away, so...maybe grab a snack and a drink, because this somehow ended up being 6.5k words. Oops. I thought about breaking it into two chapters, but like...what would the point of that be? If it’s written, I’d rather just throw it all out in one go for you guys. Plus, I don’t like breaking one day/event into multiple chapters.
> 
> (me, a couple days ago: 3 chapters is about 8k-11k words!)  
> (me, today: 3 chapters might be like 20k words - heck if I know anything about what will happen when I start writing)

Over the years, Derek had come to associate the Fourth of July with three things: Stiles’ ridiculous insistence on wearing themed outfits, Uncle Peter’s barbecue, and sparklers. These things were fine - they were comfortable for him. Alpha Ito bringing some of her pack to the Hale house to celebrate the holiday with them? Not comfortable. Which is why he was trying to exert away some of his anxiety by doing pull ups on his closet door frame for most of the morning.

He really didn’t understand what the point of this joint Fourth of July was - their packs weren’t even particularly close! The only reason Alpha Ito had come before was to have a meeting with his mom...it wasn’t like they were friends.

Derek tried to focus on letting his stress seep out with the layer of sweat forming on his skin, but he was distracted by the feeling of Stiles’ eyes on his back from where he was sitting on the bed. He dropped down to his feet and turned to look at him with his eyebrows raised. “ _What_?”

Stiles jumped at the sudden attention, causing his hands to fumble with the book he was holding and drop it off the bed onto the floor. He stared down at the book for a moment, before looking back at Derek and innocently asking, “What?”

“You’re staring.”

“I was reading.”

Derek rolled his eyes because this stupid child - who was dressed in a pair of painfully bright blue shorts, a white shirt, and a red flannel - was still trying to lie to werewolves, despite being raised with them. 

The sound of a car pulling up the driveway caught Derek’s attention and he moved over to the bed to look out the window. Sure enough, the visiting Alpha’s car was parked there and she was getting out, along with two pups and a teenage girl.

“They’re here?” Stiles asked.

Derek nodded. He sat back and let out an annoyed groan, not ready to deal with people. It was so pointless and just stressed his wolf out. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t just stay in his room.

“You ready to go say hi?” Stiles prompted, getting up on his knees and shaking Derek’s shoulder excitedly. He didn’t smell nearly as thrilled as he was acting - so Derek assumed he was trying to pump him up or something. It wasn’t working. “Here, I have something for you so you can look more festive.”

Oh, Gods.

Stiles reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of release paper.

Great, stickers.

“One for you and one for me,” Stiles said happily, unfolding the paper to reveal two small white star stickers. “It’s so tiny - you can’t be mad.”

Derek took the small star from the younger boy and put it on the right strap of his navy tank top, then looked back at Stiles with a look he hoped conveyed something along the lines of _‘you happy now?_ Stiles grinned and put his own sticker on his outer cheekbone, just to the left of his eye. 

Of course he’d put it on his face.

“How do I look?”

“Stupid.”

Stiles laughed and pushed him playfully. He slid off the bed and held his hand out to Derek, who took it and allowed the boy to pull him up to his feet. Derek followed Stiles down the stairs and out to the front lawn, but stopped at the end of the porch steps to look over the visiting wolves.

The teenage girl had a tanned complexion with dark eyes and thick black waves of hair framing her face. She seemed friendly enough. The pups looked very similar in age and couldn’t be any older than Cora and Allison. Likely younger. The little girl had short, platinum hair with bangs, as opposed to her brother’s spiked dirty blonde hair. They both had piercing blue eyes and very soft, almost delicate features.

Stiles didn’t seem as concerned with hanging back and analyzing the newcomers - he walked right up to Alpha Ito. 

_Alpha. Stiles. Threat._

Derek hurriedly followed after to keep Stiles within arm’s reach, his eyes studying the Alpha closely as he looked for any sort of hostility. It was usually impolite for a Beta to address an Alpha first - and if they did, they were supposed to bow their head. Stiles knew this just as much as the Hale pups, since he got the same lessons being part of a pack. Did he follow these lessons? Of fucking course not, because he needed to give Derek at least one heart attack a day.

“Hello, Alpha Ito,” Stiles greeted, his voice sounding oddly formal in a way Derek had never heard it before. He held out his hand and Derek almost grabbed him and pulled him back. You don’t just _touch Alphas, Stiles - what the fuck?_ “I’m Stiles Stilinski. I wasn’t here last time you came, but Derek really liked you. It’s nice to meet you.”

Alpha Ito looked down at his outstretched hand for a moment, before smiling and giving it two firm shakes. She looked like she was about to pull away, but then she tensed and her eyes flared red as she looked at the boy in alarm, confusion rolling off of her in waves.

Derek immediately reached out and pulled Stiles backwards against him, putting his left arm over his chest in a halfway embrace that kept him close, while the nails in his right hand sharpened in preparation of a possible attack. Alpha Ito didn’t appear aggressive, but his wolf wasn’t happy with the way her eyes were still shining.

Alpha Ito finally tore her attention away from Stiles to look at Derek and she seemed to snap out of the trance she was in. Her eyes dimmed back to their usual brown and she said, “I apologize, Stiles, my wolf is in an odd mood today. I hope I didn’t scare you?”

“Oh, you didn’t scare me - I'm used to Derek's wolf being in odd moods sometimes,” Stiles assured her. Derek was still unsure what exactly was going on, but Stiles was petting the arm over his chest soothingly, so Derek let his claws revert back to their usual blunt tips. “And I know you weren’t mad or anything - I'm good at knowing stuff like that. Like, I can tell if someone is a good person - and you are. I like you.”

“The feeling is mutual, child,” She chuckled warmly. She turned her attention to Derek and added, “And it’s a pleasure to see you again, Derek. You’ve got quite a bold anchor.”

Derek nodded once, unsure of what else to say. Bold? Yes. Stupid? Yes? Reckless? Absolutely.

“Right, so I’d better introduce my Betas I’ve brought with me. This young lady is Sabrina - she’s been with my pack since she was born - and the twins are Brett and Lorilee Talbot, who have joined me recently.”

“You can call me Lori, if you want,” The little girl told the Hales.

“You can call me Brett.” Her brother smirked.

Malia snorted and said, “I like him.”

“Welcome to our home,” The Hale Alpha said, smiling tightly at the pups. Her gaze didn’t linger long, as she quickly turned to Laura and introduced, “This is my Alpha Heir Laura, and those are my other two, Derek and Cora. My nieces Allison and Malia, then my nephew Jackson.”

“So...who’s Stiles?” Sabrina asked, giving him a judgmental once over. “He’s not a Hale?”

“He’s our Right Hand Christopher and I’s godson,” Uncle Peter told her. “His father is a very dear friend of ours.”

“A human outsider?” Lori questioned curiously.

“It’s a bit uncommon, we know,” Talia sighed. “Derek struggles with his control and Stiles is his anchor, so he has to be around most days to keep the peace. He’s become pack-adjacent.”

Derek growled lowly at the insinuation that Stiles was only around to manage his wolf.

_Alpha is wrong. Stiles is pack._

“And we love him and enjoy his presence,” Peter added, shooting a glare at his sister. “There’s a certain _je ne sais quoi_ in his sarcastic, pain in the ass personality, that makes the house function better.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘charming’,” Stiles tried.

Peter looked thoughtful for a moment before saying, “It definitely isn’t that.”

The girls laughed, while Jackson just shook his head with an amused smile in his face.

“Hey, Talbots, you play Mario Kart Wii?” Malia asked them.

“I’m a king at it,” Brett boasted.

Malia smiled predatorily and began walking towards the porch. “Perfect. Let’s go.”

“Bring it on.” Brett followed, with Lori right on his heels.

“She’s about to take your crown, dude,” Jackson warned him.

Once the four of them were inside, Stiles asked, “Is it like...a _thing_...for wolves to have twins a lot?”

“Yes, for born wolves,” Alpha Ito answered him. “Born wolves are much more common to have multiples than bitten wolves or humans. About one in five pregnancies result in multiples.”

Stiles raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked up at Derek. “Can you imagine if _you_ had a twin?”

“I like to think that I had a twin, but then I absorbed it into my body because there could only be one of us to make it out alive,” Cora spoke up, a wicked grin on her face. “It makes me feel powerful.”

“Cora, sweetheart, are we going to need to get you into therapy for fantasizing about fetal cannibalism? Because I’m not sure what that says about my parenting, but I don’t like it,” Peter joked.

Derek caught the angry look his mother tried to give Uncle Peter, but he wasn’t paying attention to her. Derek would never understand how people were able to just _not_ keep nearby wolves - especially Alphas - in their sights at all times. How did that not make them feel hunted by not being able to see them?

“C’mon, Stiles. The twins have partnered up, so us singles are left,” Cora said, coming over to them. And just like that, Cora had grabbed Stiles’ arm and pulled him free of Derek’s hold. Allison skipped up to them and linked her arm with Stiles’ on his other side, leaving Derek alone. 

“Christopher and Noah are inside trying to figure out how to make some sort of dessert - should we move the party to them so they don’t feel inclined to abandon it?” Uncle Peter proposed.

“Of course. I’d love to meet Noah,” Alpha Ito agreed.

The adults all made their way into the house, which meant only Derek and Sabrina were left standing in the lawn.

“Derek, right?”

Derek nodded.

“Satomi said that you don’t like to be touched or something...is that like, with everyone? Or just with outsiders?” she wondered.

Why was she asking? Was she trying to touch him? He took half a step back, just in case.

“Everyone, kinda.” Derek shrugged.

“Not the human, though.”

_Stiles could touch. He was pack. Anchor. Safe._

Derek shook his head. “My wolf likes him.”

“That’s because he’s so unthreatening...he’s skinny, short, and _human_.”

Derek didn’t like the way she nearly spit the word, as if his species made him something beneath her.

“He’s my anchor,” He said. Didn’t they already address this?

“So he’s like...what? An emotional support human?” She scoffed. “That’s weird. My pack maintains control through mantras and our pack bonds.”

He wanted to argue, but actually...yeah, Stiles was definitely his wolf’s emotional support human. That _was_ weird...he’d have to tell him - he would totally laugh at that.

“It’s kinda the same...but with his scent and the pack bond.”

“You have a pack bond with him? I thought your Alpha said he was just adjacent?”

“She’s wrong.”

“Hm,” Sabrina hummed. “What grade are you in?”

“Almost a freshman.”

“Oh, cool. Yeah, I’m going into sophomore year. Are you going to Beacon Hills High? That’s where I’m going. Maybe we’ll see each other around or something?”

As she spoke, she subtly shifted in an attempt to come a bit closer to him, as if her talking would make his wolf less aware of someone coming into his space. He took a step back and she moved a bit to follow, so he growled in warning.

_Another wolf. My space. Challenging me!_

She paused at the hostility and sighed exasperatedly. “I’m not gonna attack you or whatever - I just don’t get why we need like a whole five feet between us. It’s weird to stand so far while we’re talking.”

Her annoyance and slight anger towards him was filling the air and it further spurred his wolf, causing his eyes to flash.

_Challenge. Hostile wolf. Challenge!_

“Hey, grumpywolf! Put those flashlights in your face away - there’s a more important problem,” Stiles called out from across the yard, getting Derek’s attention. His eyes flickered over to him as he jogged closer to the two teenagers. Stiles came to a stop by lightly colliding with Derek’s side and looking up at him. Derek’s eyes dimmed. “Der, listen, it’s freakin’ _cold_ out here. You know what that means? It means I’m _freezing_.”

“You’re wearing a jacket,” Sabrina pointed out.

“Good observation skills, Sabrina. A - plus.” Stiles gave her finger guns, then looked back at Derek. “It looks like the only two options we have are for me to attach myself to your wolfy heater self for the rest of the time we’re outside, or I need another sweater.”

Derek recognized the options he was being given and could only be grateful of Stiles’ ability to subtly get messages across. Unlike his dear Alpha. Stiles was offering to hang out with him to keep his wolf in check, or giving him an excuse to escape to his den for a bit.

He knew Cora would keep an eye on Sabrina, so he smiled appreciatively at Stiles and swept his hand down the back of his neck, before retreating into the house for a socialization break.

People were fucking exhausting. And stressful. And he hated them.

* * *

After Derek had left, Stiles turned his attention to the rather peeved teenage girl, who was glaring at him. They stood around in silence for a minute or two, until Stiles couldn’t take it anymore.

“So...how are you?”

“Why didn’t _you_ just go get the jacket?” Sabrina asked.

“I’m lazy.”

“So you just boss him around and he does it? I thought you were the pet human - but it looks like you’ve made him the pet. Figures.” Sabrina shook her head in annoyance. “Humans love to think of wolves as dogs.”

“Oh, no - I’m _definitely_ the pet,” Stiles laughed. Derek, _his_ pet? No way. “Derek has to feed me a lot, and has to give me blankets and sweaters because I’m _always_ cold... he has to entertain me and read to me, he has to deal with me moving all the time and making loud noises. I’m the pet.”

“Don't you have parents or something?”

“My dad gave me to Derek for Christmas one year and now I’m his,” Stiles told her in faux seriousness. She looked at him confusedly, as if she were actually trying to figure out whether or not he was kidding.

He was, but also...kind of wasn’t.

Stiles continued, “If I don’t get these things, I’ll just _die_. It’s not easy to have a Stiles as a pet, but Derek does a great job.”

“I’ve had practice,” Derek said as he came out of the house again, carrying a black hoodie. “You started following me around when you were three.”

Derek threw the sweater on Stiles’ head and the younger boy flailed around as he put it on. Once his arms were in the right holes and the hood was up over his head, he hugged himself and sighed, “Much better.”

“Great, now you can leave,” Sabrina sneered.

Derek tensed, but Stiles could tell that he wasn’t afraid of him leaving - he was angry that Sabrina was pushing him away. Maybe it was odd that he could feel things like that. Sometimes he thought he could do it with people he was touching - like the girls and his dad - but he _always_ could feel Derek. It was almost like the feelings were his own, except in his skin, instead of in his heart. When they were far away from each other, he could only feel big things, like fear or anger. But when they were standing close? He could feel everything. Maybe it was an anchor thing, but he had no idea. He thought about bringing it up, but he was pretty sure that Derek could feel it, too. He always showed up at Stiles’ window when he was having a hard time, and he wasn’t sure if there was any other explanation for that.

“Fine,” Stiles sighed. “I’ll leave you crazy teenagers alone. But, listen here: _no_ touching. Derek isn’t allowed to date people until high school, okay? I _will_ tell on you guys if I see any sort of touching and his uncles will come put a stop to it. It will be awful and embarrassing and I will laugh at you. I’ll be watching.”

Stiles made a ‘v’ shape with his fingers and pointed at his eyes, then towards the both of them as he squinted. Derek huffed out a laugh and swatted at his head, but Stiles ducked out of the way and gave him a shit-eating grin as he headed back to Cora and Allison, who were sitting at the base of a nearby tree.

* * *

“So...what do you do for fun?” Sabrina asked Derek. She looked him over appreciatively and it made his skin crawl, so he crossed his arms over his chest. “You look like you work out...you a gym rat? Or an athlete? I could _definitely_ see you as an athlete.”

Derek didn’t answer. He really didn’t like this girl and he had no interest in talking to her anymore, if all she was going to do was ogle him, keep trying to inch herself into his space, and be a speciesist bitch to Stiles for being human, as if that made him beneath her somehow.

He glanced over at Stiles across the yard, who was luckily staying true to his word and was watching them. Stiles nodded towards the house and gave him a reassuring smile, reminding him that he actually _didn’t_ have to be out there talking with Sabrina.

“I’m gonna go help my uncles,” Derek told her, then backed up and headed into the house, leaving the girl outside.

Uncle Peter was in the living room watching the pups play Mario Kart, so Derek joined him.

“Sabrina seems interested in you,” Uncle Peter teased, the side of his mouth quirking up in a playful smile.

Derek groaned and shook his head.

“Not a fan?”

“No.”

“Me either.” He laughed. “But, it’s only for a few hours, right? We’ll survive.”

They watched as the checkered line came into view on the screen and Malia and Brett raced towards it, tied. Then, at the last second, Brett threw his hand out and knocked Malia’s controller to mess her up and allowed him to finish the race first. Everyone watched in shock for about three seconds, before Malia screamed and tackled Brett off the couch and onto the ground. 

“Beat him up, Mal!” Jackson cheered. 

Lori jumped up and made a move towards Malia as her claws lengthened, but Jackson jumped off the couch and rammed into her, sending them both to the ground, hard.

“Jesus!” Uncle Peter hissed as he and Derek hurried around the couch to break up the fights.

Derek firmly grabbed the back of Malia’s neck and wrapped an arm around her waist to lift her off of Brett. She kicked towards the other boy in a last ditch effort to injure, while Brett did the same as Peter was pulling him away. Derek set her on the ground, but kept his grip on her neck to make sure she didn’t try to attack anyone, then reached down and grabbed Jackson by the arm. Lori scrambled away towards Brett.

“Enough,” Derek said sternly to the cousins he was holding onto.

“He started it!” Malia reasoned.

“Well, we're finishing it.”

Brett shifted back to his human features and Peter released him.

“Where’s your bathroom?” Brett grumbled as he looked at his bloody arm. The injury was healed, but he still needed to wash off the evidence.

“I’ll show you.” Uncle Peter led him away, and Lori followed.

Derek let go of the twins and backed away a step. They both looked at him as if they were about to try arguing their case, so he raised his eyebrows at them, and they immediately lowered their eyes.

“They’re _guests_ ,” Derek said.

“He cheated,” Malia mumbled.

“You bit him.”

“He scratched me!” Malia lifted the hem of her shirt a little to show where her side was smeared with blood.

Derek sighed. Did he like that Brett hurt her? No. Was it her fault for tackling him? Probably. And she _did_ bite him pretty badly, judging by the amount of blood on his arm. “Just cheat on the next game - don’t attack people.”

“Fine.” She huffed.

“You, too.” Derek looked at Jackson.

“Lori tried to jump into the fight - it would be two against one! That’s just rude,” Jackson pointed out.

Derek couldn’t really argue there. Brett was giving just as much as he was getting, so it was a pretty fair fight. There was no reason for Lori to get involved. 

His eyes drifted to the window and he realized that Sabrina was no longer in the front yard. What the heck? He could hear that the adults were in the kitchen from their heartbeats, but she wasn’t in there. If she wasn’t outside and she wasn’t in the kitchen...she was upstairs. 

His wolf quickly rose to the surface and he felt his eyes glow as he sprinted for the stairs.

_Intruder in the den!_

Her floral scent became apparent the second he made it into the hallway and sure enough, he followed it directly into his room.

“You’re not an athlete - you’re a _reader_.” Sabrina was seated on his bed, flipping through one of his books as if she owned the place.

Why the fuck was she in his den? Why was she on his _bed_? 

Derek’s shift hit him within seconds and he had to grab the door frame with a clawed hand to hold himself back from charging at her.

_Intruder. Attack! Defend the den._

“Get. Out. _Now_ ,” Derek said, his voice low and raspy as he tried his hardest to keep his wolf at bay.

“I’m just trying to get to know you...y’know, find something to talk about, since you have no communication skills.” Sabrina rolled her eyes. She tossed the book onto his pillow and stood up. She made no move to leave, though. “I’ve had more stimulating conversations with a plant.”

Why wasn’t she _leaving_?

She walked over to a partially-open dresser drawer and looked into it.

“ _Leave!_ ” Derek repeated, to no avail.

She pulled out a blue graphic tee that read _‘free sarcasm’_ across the front in chunky white letters. “Is this Stiles’?”

_Stiles! She’s touching his clothes! She’s scenting everything!_

Derek bounded towards her in two strides and gripped her wrist tightly, before swinging her around to throw her into the wall by the doorway. Before she even hit the wall, she was shifted and dropped the shirt to the floor. She bared her teeth at him and he snarled loudly, crouching low as he was ready to lunge at her. The sound of footsteps running up the stairs made him hesitate.

 _Wolves! Her pack! Danger!_ **_Threat_ ** _!_

Things seemed almost detached as Derek’s wolf made the last push to take control. His mind was cloudy, like he wasn’t sure what was going on, but he was _pissed._ He was debating on taking the wolf on and just dealing with whatever other wolves came to her aid, but before he could make a move, he smelled it: cinnamon. The slightly spicy scent cut through the fog in his head and he latched onto it.

_Cinnamon. Stiles. Anchor._

Derek had a wave of fear shoot through him as Stiles ran into the room and put himself between the two wolves, holding one hand out towards either of them.

_Stiles! Danger! Protect!_

Stiles was talking to the other wolf, but Derek had no idea what he was saying. The words didn't even sound like words - it was like he was trying to decipher a completely different language. The only coherent thoughts Derek had were the ones coming from his wolf. 

_Cinnamon._ Focus. _Stiles. Anchor._ Focus, Derek. What is Stiles saying?

“ - serious, Sabrina! You need to _leave, now_. You can’t be in here,” Stiles said urgently.

He then became aware that more wolves were by the door of his room and he lost the weak grip he had on himself as his wolf growled loudly and backed up against his bed.

_We’re trapped! They trapped us in the den!_

He knew they were talking, too, but he didn’t care what anyone was saying anymore. His heart was pounding and things were moving at different times, his vision only focusing on key threats and blurring out everything else in his surroundings that didn’t matter. There was too much happening. 

_Run! Escape. The window!_

Derek inched closer to the window, but then he heard Stiles talking again and his wolf changed its mind very quickly. He wasn’t sure what he was saying, but the growl in the female’s voice was a clear threat.

_She’s challenging Stiles! Can’t leave. Danger!_

The other wolf stepped towards Stiles and Derek moved forward, but then Stiles was saying his name sternly and it made his wolf pause. The girl didn’t hesitate to continue forward, so Stiles put his hands out towards her as he obviously tried to reason with her, but she had no intention of listening. When she neared him, she carelessly pushed him out of her way so that she’d have clear access to Derek.

Everything seemed to slow down for Derek even more than it already had. The intruder’s eyes widened when Stiles let out a pained yelp as his back forcefully hit the edge of the desk, and he dropped down to his knees with a groan. It was obvious by the way the wolf had frozen that she didn't intend to push him that hard, but she had no chance to react any further before Derek had her by the throat, his nails pressing into the sides of her neck until his fingertips were damp with her blood.

 _She hurt Stiles! She hurt_ **_mine_ ** _! Kill her!_

Using his grip on her neck, he slammed her into the wall hard enough to feel the reverberation in the floorboards under their feet, and put all of the furious, lethal urges he had boiling in him into a loud roar, inches from her face. She immediately whimpered and averted her eyes downwards as her features morphed back to human. She began crying as she tried to plead with him, but he had no interest in what she had to say. He could _feel_ Stiles’ pain ringing in their bond and it was fueling his wolf to rip this bitch apart.

She came into _his_ den, challenged him, and injured his anchor! He wanted to tighten his hand until her throat was torn open. He might’ve done it, too, if he didn’t hear his anchor talking again.

Words, focus on words - what are they?

“Derek, listen,” Stiles’ voice broke through the fog in his mind. “Listen to me, okay? You gotta let go.”

He didn’t want to let go! She shouldn’t have-

“ _Derek_.”

Derek growled loudly and bared his teeth at the girl, before dragging her out of the room and tossing her into the watching wolves. Why were they still there? Were they trying to challenge him, too? Why was everyone trying to get in his den?

“Derek,” Stiles said again, softer this time. It required him to really focus to hear it. “Come here.”

Derek didn’t want to turn his back on these wolves, so he turned to the side and glanced over at Stiles. He was holding his hand out for Derek and beckoning him closer. Derek didn’t particularly want to leave the wolves unattended, but he found himself moving towards his anchor on instinct. He lowered himself to the ground beside him and Stiles brushed his hand over the side of his face. 

_He was hurt - is he okay?_

Derek leaned forward and began sniffing at his neck. He wasn’t bleeding. He moved behind Stiles and gently pushed him to lean forward so he could pull up the back of his shirt and look at the injury. There was a two inch purple line across the back of his ribs, which was going to likely bruise more in the next few hours.

_Kill the wolf!_

Derek growled in the direction of the girl still standing in his doorway, but Stiles touched his face and guided it back to look at him.

“I’m okay. You understand? I’m okay. My wolf saved me and it was _awesome_. But now I’d like my Derek back, please and thanks.” Stiles rubbed his thumbs back and forth under Derek’s eyes, forcing him to only focus on his face, his voice, his scent, his touch - grounding him. Anchoring him down. “We’re okay. No threat. Come back.”

 _Cinnamon. Vanilla. Anchor. Stiles._ **_Safe_ ** _._

The cloudiness in Derek’s mind began to fade away and he recognized the scents of the people in the hallway as his uncles, Noah, his mother, and Alpha Ito. Not threats. 

“Hurt,” Derek rasped.

“I’m clumsy and I run with wolves - I’m always a little hurt. I’ll live.” Stiles shrugged with a smile. “I promise. Learning to skateboard was _way_ worse - you remember that? Why did you even let me _try_? You should have broken the board or something...It’s not like I woulda been able to stay mad at you long.”

Derek nodded and Stiles pulled him in closer and tilted his head to the side to expose his neck. Derek leaned in and inhaled deeply, letting his scent completely take over his senses and securely lock the wolf away. Stiles hugged him and pet his hair soothingly, so Derek assumed he wasn’t supposed to move. He could feel that the whole ordeal had freaked Stiles out almost as much as it did him, so maybe the contact was for both of them to calm down. Derek shifted to relax against him more comfortably and closed his eyes.

He’d lost control. He’d had the visiting Alpha’s Beta by the throat! His mom was going to _kill_ him! Alpha Ito might kill him! This was so bad.

“You’re okay, Der,” Stiles assured him softly. Then he spoke louder, towards the group of adults. “So, is dinner almost ready? I’m starving. I think Sabrina and Derek are starving, too, because I don’t know about anyone else - but they seemed a little hangry to me a second ago. Burgers might be needed to survive the rest of the night.”

* * *

Peter had no fucking clue what was going on.

They were all just making food, then Stiles _flew_ through the front door and up the stairs without saying anything - which was never a good sign - and next thing they all knew, Derek had totally lost all control over his wolf, Satomi’s beta was shifted, and the small, fragile, human _child_ was making himself into a _barrier_ between them. Peter fully thought he was going to be the very first werewolf to die from a heart attack.

And now...now Stiles was asking about dinner.

The entire hallway reeked of fear and anger and none of the adults had any idea what to say. Sabrina was shaking and had slipped to the back of the small crowd to lean against the wall, while Derek appeared to be crashing from his control slip and was practically limp against Stiles, who was acting like this was just an average afternoon.

“I am so deeply sorry for Sabrina’s behavior,” Satomi finally said breaking the silence.

Peter assumed she was talking to Talia at first, but was surprised - and rather pleased - to see that she was speaking to the boys in the room.

“It _was_ really rude to go through someone’s room without asking, but I think she knows better now,” Stiles said. “There was some learning and nobody died, so... everything’s okay.”

Peter wasn’t sure that it was that simple. Satomi looked about thirty seconds from leaving and Peter didn’t blame her in the slightest. His kids attacked her pups and Derek almost killed her Beta. This day could literally not have been more of a disaster.

Satomi looked over to Peter and Christopher and raised an eyebrow, silently asking the question that was on the tip of everyone’s tongue: Is the evening salvageable?

Shit shows like this would normally warrant an early end to the night, but then again...everyone was okay. Peter’s wolf wanted nothing more than to attack Sabrina for disrespecting Derek’s boundaries and hurting his godson, but he could restrain himself for a few more hours. He could even hear Mario Kart going again, so the two sets of twins must have worked out their problems.

“Mr. Peter makes the _best_ burgers, don’t you?” Stiles prompted.

“I do.” Peter nodded. “It’s one of my best skills.”

“Make. them. Make. them. Make. them.” Stiles chanted, fist pumping the air with the hand that wasn’t in Derek’s hair.

“I’m aware that Sabrina was the one who provoked this, so it’s up to you, if we stay,” Satomi said, eyes flickering between Talia, Christopher, and Peter.

“We did buy a lot of burger patties...it would be a waste,” Christopher reasoned.

“Plus, we got sparklers!” Stiles added excitedly. “We have to do them in the driveway, though, so we don’t catch the whole Preserve on fire.”

“You’re more than welcome to stay, Satomi,” Talia encouraged. “If Derek wasn’t so - “

“If _Sabrina_ respected his boundaries, I think you mean,” Satomi corrected her. “Then we wouldn’t have had this unfortunate altercation. I agree, and I’ll be speaking with her at home about that and a couple of other things I noticed today regarding her behavior.”

Peter hoped she was referring to the speciesist bullshit Sabrina had been oozing all afternoon - because he was seconds away from stepping in himself, no matter how out of line it would be.

“Well, I guess I’ll go start dinner, then.” Peter clapped his hands together and Christopher moved to the side to let him pass.

“Would you like some help? I can cut lettuce and tomatoes very well,” Satomi offered. He was about to say no, but something in her eyes expressed to him that she wanted to talk and he wasn’t just going to ignore that.

“I would love help with that, actually.”

“Alright, well let’s move this downstairs - there’s no reason to be standing around here.” Satomi ushered them all towards the stairs.

When they all reached the entryway, Peter made eye contact with his husband and looked pointedly at Talia and to the front door.

“I think we could use some fresh air, Talia, don’t you?” Christopher said, guiding both the Alpha and Laura outside. Noah luckily got the hint, too, and followed them out, so that Peter and Satomi were alone.

“Stiles is interesting,” Satomi said as she grabbed the tomatoes from a bag in the fridge.

“He has no self-preservation instincts. I mean, I thought his father was bad...Noah decided we were best friends after I shifted and tried to kill him in the locker room when we were sixteen. But Stiles? He’s at a whole other level of reckless.”

“I can’t argue that it was reckless and dangerous,” Satomi agreed. “But that was not a simple situation and he mediated it flawlessly. How old is he, again?”

“Nine.”

“That’s very impressive. He’d make an excellent Right Hand, being able to keep a level head and putting his packmate above his own safety like he did to solve the issue. And Derek...Gods, he’s what? Fourteen, fifteen? In all my years, I’ve _never_ heard a Beta roar like _that_.”

She was right. Peter was shocked when he heard it come from his nephew and it called out to his wolf in a way he didn’t expect. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest when it forced Sabrina’s wolf to recede - he’s pretty sure it would have done the same to his.

“They’re an impressive pair,” Peter agreed.

“They’re a _formidable_ pair,” Satomi said. “It makes me wonder if Talia chose the wrong Heir to train. They would have made a spectacular Hale Alpha and Alpha Mate. Then again, it’s impossible to know who Derek would have been were he in Laura’s shoes, what with the different parenting and all.”

Peter smiled, something akin to pride swelling in his chest as she acknowledged Derek as his and Christopher’s. Talia would freak out if she had heard, but he was glad that Satomi saw through her bullshit. 

They worked in silence for the next few minutes as they prepared the food, until Satomi turned to him and said softly, “I have to ask - has Stiles ever shown any indications of not being human?”

Peter’s eyebrows furrowed and he abandoned his cutting to look at her. “Not human?”

“When he shook my hand earlier, I felt something. It was odd - like an energy. My eyes went red, because it brought my wolf out. Not in a lack of control way, just...like something - that energy - was connecting with it, almost.”

“Stiles?” Peter double checked, confused as to what the heck she was talking about. He’d been with the kid since he was born and there had never been any weird energy when he touched him. Satomi nodded, so he said, “No...never. Are you sure?”

“As sure as I am that my wolf exists at all. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

“I’m sorry - he’s never seemed anything other than human to me.”

“How odd,” She hummed. “I would have thought I possibly imagined it, if it weren’t for his eyes.”

“His eyes?”

“They glowed completely white,” She revealed. “As if there was no pupil, no iris - just...energy.”

Peter thought she should have led with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was SCOURING tumblr the other day and realized that there is so little Petopher content on there compared to the other Teen Wolf ships and I was HEARTBROKEN. I made a Petopher group chat because I couldn't find one and now I'm the only one in it...so that's how my week has gone so far. If any of you would like to join my group chat and help me find cute Petopher things or just talk about literally anything (teen wolf, sterek, life, whatever), just look up 'Petopher' on Tumblr and it should pop up as the only group chat with that name lol.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys are doing well.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got caught up in school and Sterek Valentine Week, but I'm back! My school schedule is really heavy at the moment, so I will be changing my update days to every Monday.
> 
> This chapter was supposed to have more Stilinski family feels, but I just couldn't because they doesn't have as much chemistry as the Hale pack - which is totally my fault...I never bothered to develop Claudia's personality as much as I should have. I accidently put all the chemistry into Noah/Peter/Chris hahaha. My bad.
> 
> Y'all know the drill...I'll edit this later haha. Just wanted to get it out to you.
> 
> Much love to you all :)

The sun shining in from the car window was nearly blinding Stiles, but he couldn’t risk tearing his eyes away from the outside. His parents had told him they were going on an adventure “wherever the car takes us” and that could really mean anything. Sometimes, it meant the park...last time, the car took him to get two shots - and he was not risking that again. No way, his eyes were staying vigilant to make sure they weren’t going to the doctor.

If they ended up there, he was not above making a break for it and running towards the Preserve.

The car pulled into the Baskin-Robbins parking lot and Stiles squealed as he excitedly fumbled to get his seatbelt unbuckled. He managed to get it off just before his mom opened his car door and he practically fell out of the car in his haste.

“The ice cream isn’t going anywhere, Miecio,” She assured him as she offered her hand.

Usually, he’d argue that he was too big to be holding hands with his mom, but...well, there wasn’t mud on the bed this morning and Stiles was pretty happy about that. His dad was, too, hence the sudden ice cream adventure. He didn’t smell like whiskey today, either.

Stiles took her hand and the three of them walked into the ice cream shop. As soon as the glass counters came into view, he pulled her towards them excitedly.

“What do you want, Son?” His dad ruffled Stiles’ shaggy hair as he walked up beside them.

Stiles debated for a few seconds, then said, “Wild n’ Reckless Sherbet in a cone, please!”

“I’m not surprised by that in the slightest,” Dad chuckled.

“Oh, hush, Noah.” Mom swatted his arm. “I’d like a cup of Very Berry Strawberry, please.”

After they got their ice cream, they found a table by the door and sat down.

“So, how has school been?” Mom asked him.

“Boring.” Stiles shrugged as he sucked some of the ice cream into his mouth. “Scott’s cool, though. He’s really nice. It’ll be a _lot_ more fun when the Hales get to come to sixth grade with me in a few years, though!”

“I’m sure that will be very hectic,” Mom said. “The poor teachers who happen to get a class with you kids in it…”

“I am a _blessing_ , Mama,” Stiles argued. “Those teachers will be _blessed_.”

“Yes, my dear, you are.”

“If blessing is another word for pain in the butt, definitely,” Dad agreed, earning a scandalized look from Stiles.

“How rude,” Stiles grumbled, but his feigned annoyance was ruined by the smile on his face. He knew just as much as his parents how much of a handful he was - and it was entirely intentional.

“You know what sounds good?” Dad proposed. “Olive Garden. That’s my vote for dinner.”

“Mmm, that sounds amazing,” Mom agreed, then looked down at Stiles. “What do you think?”

Olive Garden was not Stiles’ favorite - he was more of a diner person. Curly fries and milkshakes all the way! But his parents seemed pretty excited by the idea, so he said, “I think you guys should go.”

“Us?” Dad raised his eyebrows. “And you’ll just spend the night in Baskin Robbins?”

Stiles hadn’t actually thought about that, but it sounded _awesome_ and he was not opposed to it in the slightest.

“I can see those wheels turning, Son,” Dad chuckled, nudging him under the table with his foot. “We aren’t leaving you here.”

“Okay, then I can call Derek,” Stiles suggested, holding up his silver flip phone. “He’d come.”

“Oh, we can’t just pass you off to Derek whenever we want to go on a date,” Mom reasoned. “It’s fine, Mischief. We can be romantic on our own time - I’m sure we’ll live.”

“No,” Stiles insisted as he looked for Derek’s contact. He glanced up for a moment to wiggle his eyebrows and say, “You guys should be romantic today.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Dad snorted.

“I don’t know about this, Stiles. Derek is a teenager, he’s not going to want to babysit all the time.”

“It’s not _babysitting_ ,” Stiles dismissed her. “He’s not even getting paid. He just loves me.”

His mom looked like she was about to argue a bit more, but Stiles pressed _Call_ ‘ _My Grumpy Wolf’_ and put the phone to his ear.

* * *

Derek was prowling through the Preserve, allowing his wolf close enough to the surface to listen for the sounds of the hidden pups. After a few moments, he heard the faint rustle of a shoe shifting in the crunchy leaves nearby and took off running towards it.

Within seconds, he was crouching in the middle of a small clearing, scanning the surrounding trees and sniffing the air.

_Honeysuckle. Twins._

Derek followed the familiar scent trail and tried to find a second smell. Both twins carried a strong honeysuckle scent, but Malia also had hints of peony, while Jackson had-

_Petrichor!_

Derek could hear Jackson’s heart beating wildly from behind a tree trunk ahead of him and a predatory grin pulled at the corners of his mouth, exposing his sharpened canines. He moved stealthily towards the tree, but just as he got near enough to pounce, his phone rang out like an ice pick straight into Derek’s eardrum. He grimaced and slammed the heels of his palms against his ears, trying to push his wolf back enough to lower his ears’ sensitivity.

Jackson came out from behind the tree with a smug expression, because he technically hadn’t been found, and the game was obviously over now since the only people who ever called Derek were his uncles or Stiles - either of which would mean leaving the Preserve.

Derek hesitantly uncovered one ear and fished the phone from his pocket. “What?”

 _“Hey, Der,”_ Stiles chirped. _“Wanna hang out?”_

What Derek _wanted_ to do was rip his head off for deafening him in the middle of a hunt.

“Where?” He asked tightly.

_“Baskin Robbins - I’m here already.”_

“I have the pups.”

_“Okay...well, they like ice cream.”_

“So, bring them?”

 _“Jackson, too?”_ Stiles groaned. Derek rolled his eyes, not even bothering to answer. _“Yeah, whatever. But if he’s a butthead, I’m putting ice cream down his shirt.”_

Derek heard Claudia chastising him, so he just cut in with a “Bye,” and hung up.

“You didn’t even answer him - are we getting ice cream?” Jackson asked.

“I did,” Derek argued. He literally had a whole conversation about bringing the pups and everything. 

“What if Stiles thinks we’re not coming and leaves?”

“He knows.”

“We’re getting ice cream?” Malia asked as she ran up to the clearing.

“Apparently.” Jackson shrugged.

Malia excitedly fist pumped the air and then threw her head back to howl, which was quickly answered by Cora’s own about half a mile away.

* * *

It took about thirty minutes for the Hales to walk through the doors of Baskin Robbins.

They had barely stepped inside, when Derek was nearly smacked by Stiles aggressively waving his hand at them. Derek caught the hand and slid his grip down to brush his fingertips over Stiles’ inner forearm in greeting. 

“Okay, you guys can go now,” Stiles told his parents.

Noah scoffed and said, “Wow, I feel the love.”

“Derek, are you sure we can leave Stiles with you?” Claudia asked, reaching out to touch his upper arm. He subtly shied away from her hand by stepping closer to Noah’s side of the table. She didn’t seem to notice his discomfort, but she didn’t move to touch him again, which he was grateful for. “You seem to have a lot on your plate already and we really don’t have to go out tonight.”

Stiles groaned dramatically and leaned back in his chair.

“It’s fine,” Derek told her.  The whole point of him dragging all the pups there was because Stiles asked him to come - why would he just randomly change his mind?

“I’m sure we could pay you or something -”

“It’s not like that,” Derek rejected. He wasn’t babysitting - this wasn’t a  _ job _ . Being around Stiles was just about the only time that Derek didn't have to keep a constant monitor on his wolf - it was a nice break.

“He actually likes me around, believe it or not,” Stiles said.

Noah stood up and went to clap Derek on the shoulder, pausing a moment before the touch came to allow Derek to move away, but he didn’t. He squeezed his shoulder and shook him lightly, saying, “Derek, you know the drill. If Stiles gets too annoying, just throw him in the nearest dumpster.”

“No!” Stiles exclaimed, offended.

“Will do.” Derek smirked.

“Alright,” Claudia relented as she stood as well. “Text us if you need anything, then.”

“Yeah, yeah, we know.” Stiles pushed his parents towards the door. “Go be romantic now.”

Once Noah and Claudia were gone, Stiles pulled Derek over to the glass counters, where the pups were peering in at all the flavors.

“Do you want to buy me ice cream?” Stiles smiled sweetly up at him.

“You had some.”

“I don’t see any in my hands right now, though.”

Derek raised an eyebrow at the boy, then huffed and motioned towards the cashier.

“Hi, Miss,” Stiles said politely.

“Hello.” She grinned.

“Can I have a scoop of Raspberry Sorbet in a cup, please?”

“Sure thing.” She typed the order into the computer, then looked at Derek expectantly.

Derek realized that he hadn’t even looked at the flavors yet and momentarily panicked at being put on the spot. “Uh...chocolate.”

“Okay, well we have several different kinds of chocolate,” She said, then began listing them.

What the fuck? Why were there so many chocolate options? 

“He’ll take Chocolate Fudge in a cup,” Stiles supplied helpfully.

The cashier looked at Derek for confirmation and he nodded.

“Okay, and any more ice creams in this order?” She asked.

“Four more,” Stiles said as he left Derek’s side to go stand behind Cora, wrapping his arms around her and hooking his chin over her shoulder while she looked at the flavors.

“What did you get?” She asked him.

“Wild n’ Reckless Sherbet was really good.”

“Can I have that in a cone?” Cora ordered.

Stiles looked over at Allison and asked, “What do you want?”

“Uh...Cotton Candy in a cone, please.”

“Do you know what you want, Mal?” Jackson nudged his sister.

“I’m thinking maybe the Peanut Butter n’ Chocolate.”

“Okay, then how about I get the Pineapple Coconut and we share?” Jackson suggested.

“Perfect.” Malia nodded.

“Thanks, Der,” Stiles said as Derek handed the cashier his credit card.

Once they were seated back at the table that the Stilinskis had occupied, Derek found a spoonful of Raspberry Sorbet being held in front of his face. 

“Try it - it’s amazing,” Stiles encouraged.

Derek opened his mouth and Stiles put the spoon in. He nodded in approval as he held the sweet, fruity taste in his mouth for a bit, before finally swallowing as it liquified on his tongue. He wished real raspberries tasted like that - then he could eat fruit to satisfy his sweet tooth, instead of having to buy candy bars at the gas station by his school. He took a bite of his own ice cream and noticed that it mixed deliciously with the remaining taste of Stiles' ice cream.

Raspberries and chocolate - who knew?

He noticed Stiles staring pointedly at his ice cream and offered him a spoonful.

"Mm, it tastes good with the raspberry," Stiles commented.

"Right?"

“Guess what Malia did,” Cora said, drawing Stiles’ attention.

“What?”

Jackson told him, “She asked Dad to invite the Talbots on the camping trip.”

“I thought you guys got in a fight with them?” Stiles said confusedly.

“Brett said they never went camping before!” Malia reasoned. “Plus, if he tries to fight me again, I’ll just drown him in the lake.”

“You can’t just say that,” Derek hissed, but they could all see the amusement twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Malia shrugged remorselessly. “Jackson would help me, too.”

“I never said that,” he pointed out.

“You’re my person - you gotta help me drown people. If it’s my problem, it’s your problem!” Malia said, leaning into her brother.

Jackson chuckled and put his arm around her shoulders. “You know I would.”

“Your hair is getting so long, Stiles.” Allison noticed, reaching out to brush it out of his face. He leaned a bit into her touch and she brushed her thumb over his cheek before pulling her hand away. 

“Mama hasn’t cut it in awhile, because...well, he just doesn’t have time to.” Stiles shrugged, a slightly sour scent tingeing the air around him as he pulled at his nearly shoulder-length hair. Derek knew that he meant Claudia wasn’t having many lucid enough days lately, but he wasn’t going to call him out on it. Stiles quickly rushed out, “I kinda like it, though! Except when it pokes me in the eyes - that’s a little annoying.”

“Can I braid it?” Allison asked him. 

“Uh, yeah!” Stiles nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve never had braids before.”

Allison grinned and went to hand her ice cream to Malia to hold, but quickly changed her mind and gave it to Jackson instead.

Good choice.

She moved behind Stiles and gently tipped his head back to begin carding her fingers through his hair, untangling any stray knots in their path. She snagged a particularly strong one and Stiles’ head was tugged back further allowing them to look at each other upside down.

“Sorry,” She apologized.

“Make me pretty.” Stiles giggled around the spoon in his mouth.

Allison nodded as she adjusted his head to the right place she wanted him, then began separating his hair into two sections. 

Derek was almost impressed watching her braid. She was fast at it, considering she’d only learned a few weeks prior. The first braid was finished within a minute and she took the elastic hair tie out of her own hair to tie it off at the bottom. The second one was just as fast as the first and Stiles was left with two fairly neat dutch braids running across the upper sides of his head. Most of his hair was successfully secured back, apart from a few shorter, wispy strands that stubbornly stayed to frame his face.

“Thanks, Allie - I love them,” Stiles told the girl as she retrieved her ice cream from Jackson.

Derek took the mangled plastic spoon, which was bent completely out of shape with teeth imprints and splintered edges, from Stiles’ mouth and set it on the table, then stuck his own into the boy's ice cream scoop as a replacement. 

“How do I look?” Stiles asked Derek as he reached up to touch the braids.

Derek swatted his hands away from his hair so that he could actually see them. After staring thoughtfully for several long seconds, he opened his mouth to make a joke about him looking stupid - but the words got stuck in his throat. Stiles’ scent was so warm and sweet, and his face was practically _beaming_ in pride of his new hairstyle, so Derek instead told him, “They look good.”

It wasn’t a lie - he thought Stiles looked a lot better with braids than Cora did.

Stiles laughed, then mimed sweeping his hair over his shoulder with his eyes closed, and Derek pushed his head gently.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think— I’d love to hear your thoughts/feelings! Kudos, Subscriptions, Bookmarks, and Comments are greatly appreciated :)


End file.
